# What next GM?????



## RKM (Jun 23, 2005)

Now there is talk they want the tax payer to bail out their pension plan too! Wholy cripes when does it end and why should we the tax payers be on the hook for their pensions? Do you think the CAW and GM would give a flying rats ass about our pensions if the businesses we worked for went belly up? Time for the tax payers to say enough is enough.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

There is legislation in place already anyway - this is not new.

Between that, EI and welfare for the hard cases.........one way or another....gonna get cha get cha get cha


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

The US's failure to nationalise health care will eventually kill GM and several other large businesses, as they cannot compete with private health care against countries that provide health care (and generally do so far more efficiently than the US).

I predicted this about four years ago, I'd say GM has less than a year left to live.


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## JumboJones (Feb 21, 2001)

chas_m said:


> I'd say GM has less than a year left to live.


Well GM has lost their first limb, SAAB has filed for bankruptcy, I think Saturn will be next on the chopping block.


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## imactheknife (Aug 7, 2003)

good riddance to the corporate greed mongers....sorry for the loss of jobs but like the Jack Nicholson Movie "Somethings Gotta Give"


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## imactheknife (Aug 7, 2003)

JumboJones said:


> Well GM has lost their first limb, SAAB has filed for bankruptcy, I think Saturn will be next on the chopping block.


Kinda funny but when Saturn first came out thier slogan was "different kind of company, different kind of Car" They said Saturn was Unique and was it's own company. Now all Saturn is is a different outer body over a pontiac or Chevy frame which is not unique. They would have been better calling Saturn URanus.


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## DrewNL (May 23, 2005)

I'm not too concerned with SAAB since they hardly employ anyone outside of Trollhättan.


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## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

My guess is that Pontiac is next on GM's chopping block aside from the G8 and Vibe there aren't any other stellar performers in its lineup.

Laterz


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## vinnie mack (Dec 22, 2007)

i haven't been reliable on my sources lately mainly because I am incapable of reading an entire paragraph haha but Saturn is said to be gone by the end of this product cycle according to GM.

Saturn, A Eulogy: At Least Plastic Is Recyclable

Pontiac is next as well.


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## rgray (Feb 15, 2005)

There was talk on yesterday's news about GM dumping Saturn and Hummer...


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## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

RKM said:


> Now there is talk they want the tax payer to bail out their pension plan too! Wholy cripes when does it end and why should we the tax payers be on the hook for their pensions? Do you think the CAW and GM would give a flying rats ass about our pensions if the businesses we worked for went belly up? Time for the tax payers to say enough is enough.



As MacDoc says, the tax payers will be on the hook anyways. This is much more of a case of mismanagement, and from the history of company pension plans, I would much rather manage my own, even if it takes a hit in the company contributions. At least then I'll have it.




K_OS said:


> My guess is that Pontiac is next on GM's chopping block aside from the G8 and Vibe there aren't any other stellar performers in its lineup.


Getting rid of "product lines" is not really going to help, it will have a negligible effect. The different lines kind of trick people into thinking its a different manufacturer even though the only differences are a grills etc. By not giving consumers "choice" the negative effect might offset the the savings, although GM is terribly ran, they might be better off.

Funny how the Vibe is a Toyota Matrix though? Also the G8 is a Holden, but that actually is a GM product.




chas_m said:


> The US's failure to nationalise health care will eventually kill GM and several other large businesses, as they cannot compete with private health care against countries that provide health care (and generally do so far more efficiently than the US).
> 
> I predicted this about four years ago, I'd say GM has less than a year left to live.


Also nationlizing healthcare allows for controlling costs. Where in the States the market decides, which mean they will charge you as much as they can before you stop going there, hence the crazy costs.

I would rather see the extra $16billion used to create a company that builds cars and then they can buy alot of the R&D when others go bankrupt for nothing. GM is a lumbering dinosaur, and unfortunately they refuse to evolve until it is to late, so we will wait and see if they survive.


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

I'm surprised that the Astra and Aura did little to help Saturn. They're good cars and the Astra is a great alternative to the overpriced VW Rabbit. 

The G8 GXP with the Corvette Engine and cooled 6 speed manual transmission is a beautiful monster, but as much as I want one I probably won't get one and it's not going to sell in droves. (I did see one the other day).

The Cobalt/G5 is in serious need of reengineering -- make it lighter and put a smaller engine in it (although GM is not the only guilty of building obese vehicles, Toyota's new Corolla is 250 lbs too heavy but it still has great fuel economy at least). 

I think quite simply, GM got way too big and maybe downsizing a bit is a good thing. Get rid of either Pontiac or Chevrolet and cut any overlapping models. Hummer has a bad rap, I want to throw water balloons at one everytime I see one. Same goes with the Suburban... didn't 8 people die when a Suburban plunged from an overpass in Colorado? Bigger = safer... NOT! They should keep Buick and Cadillac, they've strangely each have a different target market and the Buick Enclave has got to be by far one of the most beautiful cars ever made. No joke. Perhaps the biggest mistake is GM relying too much on rebadging foreign cars when they now have an excess of manufacturing capacity in North America. And if they do not have any compelling cars lined up in the next couple of years, they may just be dead.


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## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

dona83 said:


> The Cobalt/G5 is in serious need of reengineering -- make it lighter and put a smaller engine in it (although GM is not the only guilty of building obese vehicles, Toyota's new Corolla is 250 lbs too heavy but it still has great fuel economy at least)..


The Cobalt is being replaced by the Chevy Cruze which is coming next year as a 2011 model and it will pack a 140hp turbocharged 1.4L motor capable of achieving around 40mpg.

Laterz


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

K_OS said:


> The Cobalt is being replaced by the Chevy Cruze which is coming next year as a 2011 model and it will pack a 140hp turbocharged 1.4L motor capable of achieving around 40mpg.
> 
> Laterz


Ooo I did not know. It's pretty decent, much better looking than the Cobalt/G5 but the interior although unique looks cheap (in fairness, the Honda Civic also has a unique but cheap (base model) interior). So the 1.4L will be the smallest engine in a non hybrid/Smart over here but that's quite a bit of power. Whether this car will keep GM afloat, who knows.


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## rgray (Feb 15, 2005)

GM seems to be leaning a lot on the Volt but that POS has a range of 40 miles!! To put that in perspective it would not get me to work and one has to wonder how much that range would be diminished if you turn on heaters in a Canadian winter. That range is somewhat ridiculous in the face of the 3000 od mile distance across the country.... Can these people read a map?


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

JumboJones said:


> Well GM has lost their first limb, SAAB has filed for bankruptcy, I think Saturn will be next on the chopping block.


Saab was never the same once they stopped making the two cycle engines, and Saturn is nothing more than a reheated Cavalier these days, with none of the pretenses of being "competition" to the Japanese, or even the pretense of being all plastic and shopping-cart durable.

If you subtract all of the forgettable or regrettable cars GM is shoving out the doors these days, the cost of pension or health care is the smallest problem - they just don't have anything anyone wants to buy. Too many years, too much garbage, too little interest. It is funny that they stopped the whole SS thing - because now, if you want speed, you can buy it elsewhere from everyone else...


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

rgray said:


> There was talk on yesterday's news about GM dumping Saturn and Hummer...


I will do a little dance when Hummer goes under.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

rgray said:


> GM seems to be leaning a lot on the Volt but that POS has a range of 40 miles!! To put that in perspective it would not get me to work and one has to wonder how much that range would be diminished if you turn on heaters in a Canadian winter. That range is somewhat ridiculous in the face of the 3000 od mile distance across the country.... Can these people read a map?


Buyers of the Volt are (presumably) not stupid, and would thus know if 40 miles would work for them. I think it's pretty obviously aimed at city dwellers.

As a data point, 40 miles (64km) would last me a week, possibly two, of driving around Victoria. It would make an ideal second vehicle for us.


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## ErnstNL (Apr 12, 2003)

The auto industry relies on a supply chain that is massive in scope. If GM and Chrysler goes under, Ford will too, and Magna and possibly Nissan, it's a set of dominoes standing on a banana peel. 
10 of K's of jobs lost, the start of a massive depression. 

Wallow in misery...

Hey it's time to buy GM shares! Under $2! (Positive! Eh!)
LOL.


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

While GM et. al. have certainly made their mistakes in the past, the big problem is the fact that the North American auto market suddenly shrank to about 10M units per year.

Since about 1/2 of the new car buyers wouldn't consider any North American branded car regardless of what they were offering or how well it was built, the Detroit companies have a market of ~5M units per year to split between them for the foreseeable future.

If they can shrink fast enough to be profitable at this size then they might stand a chance.


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## rgray (Feb 15, 2005)

+
YouTube Video









ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.


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## Lawrence (Mar 11, 2003)

Maybe GM should bring back the Chevette.
Since the middle class has shrunk so much lately,
I think that an economy car will be a real winner nowadays.


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## rgray (Feb 15, 2005)

dolawren said:


> Maybe GM should bring back the Chevette.
> Since the middle class has shrunk so much lately,
> I think that an economy car will be a real winner nowadays.


Well the Chevette definitely was iconic of GM's attitude to an 'economy' car, namely an nasty little underperforming sh!tbox... To bad they never figured out that 'economical' is not the same as 'cheap'. The Chevette was a horrible little steaming pile that had no redeeming feature except some (?) of them seemed to last. Irony is that GM, under the guise of Vauxhall, has some very nice, good performing, comfortable little cars in England.


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## ScanMan (Sep 11, 2007)

dona83 said:


> ...much better looking than the Cobalt/G5..


HEY! You're dissin' the wife's ride there, bud.

What's got me concerned lately is where I'm going to be taking this thing for service. Both Chev dealers in our area closed up shop in the past year and the nearest one is now a 30 minute drive away. And I'm in the GTA. 

Instead of being able to just "drive right in", you've now got to book more than a week in advance. I do most maintenance myself (including brakes), but you've got to take it in sometime. I suppose I should be grateful that so far at least, there is still some place to take it.


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## Lawrence (Mar 11, 2003)

rgray said:


> Well the Chevette definitely was iconic of GM's attitude to an 'economy' car, namely an nasty little underperforming sh!tbox... To bad they never figured out that 'economical' is not the same as 'cheap'. The Chevette was a horrible little steaming pile that had no redeeming feature except some (?) of them seemed to last. Irony is that GM, under the guise of Vauxhall, has some very nice, good performing, comfortable little cars in England.


Then I suppose they could always bring back the 3 cylinder Chevy Sprint /Metro,
Now there was a car, Loved the convertible too, Not bad for an econobox.

Course that might be too much for them to comprehend sale wise,
A loser mobile with 2 metals that erode each other might be better suited for
the masses, Like the Chevy Cavalier


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## rgray (Feb 15, 2005)

dolawren said:


> Then I suppose they could always bring back the 3 cylinder Chevy Sprint /Metro,
> Now there was a car, Loved the convertible too, Not bad for an econobox.


It was a much better car in its original Suzuki Swift/Forsa form before it got f*cked over by GM's Product Cheapening Department... .


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

Although the economic downturn was to some extent unpredictable for Detroit, this has been largely a planned experience.

They had to dump the benefits, both legacy and current and they had to cut workers.

GM was operating at 76% efficiency in 2007. They had 24% of their assets idling, but they had to keep people employed. No company can survive like that for very long...


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## eggman (Jun 24, 2006)

Adrian. said:


> Although the economic downturn was to some extent unpredictable for Detroit, this has been largely a planned experience.
> 
> They had to dump the benefits, both legacy and current and they had to cut workers.
> 
> GM was operating at 76% efficiency in 2007. They had 24% of their assets idling, but they had to keep people employed. No company can survive like that for very long...


One of the people they "had to keep employed" was the CEO... who got $15.7M in 2007... I have to agree - no company can survive like THAT for very long! 

GM CEO's compensation jumps 64 percent in 2007 | Reuters

(That comes out to about $8055/hr for those out there who are offended by the high hourly cost of some autoworkers (depending who does the math those numbers always come out different)).


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## Lawrence (Mar 11, 2003)

rgray said:


> It was a much better car in its original Suzuki Swift/Forsa form before it got f*cked over by GM's Product Cheapening Department... .


I know it was, But we are talking about the F*©kers here not the better car makers,
We want them to survive so that they can butcher more econo cars in the future.

Why, I really don't know, I'd rather that they all died and left Canada for good,
I'd much rather embrace the next generation technology like the capacitor car.
(A hybrid capacitor/battery car is inevitable)

Course the idea of a charge station instead of a gas station may be too far forward to some people, It's gotta happen some time, Why not now, While we are all broke.


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

I wonder, the $7Bn dollar bailout the government is giving Detroit could have definitely provided some nice venture capital for a start up Canadian auto firm like Zenn or even create a nationalised auto manufacturer. 

Just a thought.

$7 Bn can do a lot of things. I am sure one of them is creating a Canadian car company.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Adrian. said:


> Although the economic downturn was to some extent unpredictable for Detroit, this has been largely a planned experience.
> 
> They had to dump the benefits, both legacy and current and they had to cut workers.
> 
> GM was operating at 76% efficiency in 2007. They had 24% of their assets idling, but they had to keep people employed. No company can survive like that for very long...


Entirely predictable. One of the reasons for the Gulf War was to line the pockets of Bush's oil buds. A general recession was also predictable. When you artificially inflate Wall Street by pushing down interest rates the bubble will burst as rates approach zero. Throw in a bunch of banks kiting worthless checks back and forth and recession is putting it much too mildly.


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## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

eMacMan said:


> Entirely predictable. One of the reasons for the Gulf War was to line the pockets of Bush's oil buds. A general recession was also predictable. When you artificially inflate Wall Street by pushing down interest rates the bubble will burst as rates approach zero. Throw in a bunch of banks kiting worthless checks back and forth and recession is putting it much too mildly.


Ya a reccesion was totally predictable, was especially predictable with the market drop I 2007.

Can you enlighten me if this new bubble bursting as the rates approach zero?, just trying to learn.


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## Lawrence (Mar 11, 2003)

Adrian. said:


> I wonder, the $7Bn dollar bailout the government is giving Detroit could have definitely provided some nice venture capital for a start up Canadian auto firm like Zenn or even create a nationalised auto manufacturer.
> 
> Just a thought.
> 
> $7 Bn can do a lot of things. I am sure one of them is creating a Canadian car company.


Canada doesn't need a national car company, They'd just sink it and then sell it,


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

My commute from Mission to Vancouver is long and it's 65km. I would hate to be the person who has to commute longer than my 2 hours.


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## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

dona83 said:


> My commute from Mission to Vancouver is long and it's 65km. I would hate to be the person who has to commute longer than my 2 hours.


Wow... 2hours for a 65 km commute!

I had beaten that, only with the bus strike here in ottawa. It took me 3 hours to get to school about 58km away from my house. More importantly it would take me an hour to move 2km, with no accidents. This only happened to me 3 times but still thats nuts... I am guessing traffic BC is terrible.


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

ertman said:


> Wow... 2hours for a 65 km commute!
> 
> I had beaten that, only with the bus strike here in ottawa. It took me 3 hours to get to school about 58km away from my house. More importantly it would take me an hour to move 2km, with no accidents. This only happened to me 3 times but still thats nuts... I am guessing traffic BC is terrible.


The mountains and the swirvy roads are more difficult than straight Ontario highways


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

ertman said:


> Wow... 2hours for a 65 km commute!


I'm thinking that two hours is both ways, still an hour to go 65 km is only a 65 kph average.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

dolawren said:


> Canada doesn't need a national car company, They'd just sink it and then sell it,


Already done - the Bricklin...


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

No, I have to leave the house at 6:15am to get to work by 8pm whether I drive or take the train.

Going home, I leave the office at 5pm I get home by 6:45 on the train or 7 by car. Depends on traffic. Getting out of Vancouver is a killer, it can take 45 minutes to get to the highway.


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## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

Just in case you want to buy a Saab here is some reassurance from Mark C. McNabb, GM's Premium Channel Vice President.

From Autoblog.com


> LETTER TO SAAB OWNERS FROM MARK MCNABB:
> 
> Dear ________,
> 
> ...


I feel allot better now(not), how about you?

Laterz


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

^^^
I do - just incase I decide that it would be "cool" to own a SAAB - after becoming possessed by some Haiti style demons while smoking a van load of ganja with Tommy Chong - which would be on the day after I vote Fiberal.

I don't think SAAB is GM's real problem - I still think it is all of the crudmobiles that continue to make. I mean, GM needs to be punished for the Aztek...


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

GM just fell to third from #1 in Canada.... 



> *GM Canada loses hold on No. 1*
> 
> GREG KEENAN
> 
> ...


reportonbusiness.com: GM Canada loses hold on No. 1

Interesting times.....


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## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

*GM Drops to #3 in Canada*

Manufacturer Feb 2009	Feb 2008	% Change

Chrysler 11,923 16,332 -27.0

Ford 11,854	14,019	-15.4

General Motors	11,381	26,309	-56.7

GM dropped to #3 in sales in Feb for the 1st time in a long time and Chrysler Canada jumped to #1 for the 1st time in its 84 year history.

Laterz


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

I wonder if this is going to set off any warning bells in the General's thick skull. Perhaps it is so dense that not even this will register...

While I'm not enjoying seeing the car makers squirm (well, maybe just a little bit...), I do welcome the wholesale changes this opportunity will create.


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## AppleAuthority (May 21, 2005)

It's been a while since I ranted on this forum, but this topic has urged me to express my opinion on the matter. If you'd rather not read my very direct, and rather lengthly analysis of the situation and comments here, I suggest you move on. 



RKM said:


> Now there is talk they want the tax payer to bail out their pension plan too! Wholy cripes when does it end and why should we the tax payers be on the hook for their pensions? Do you think the CAW and GM would give a flying rats ass about our pensions if the businesses we worked for went belly up? Time for the tax payers to say enough is enough.


You have to distinguish the difference between the union and the automaker. I'm not here to invoke or agitate the crowd protecting the union's interests, but the fact of the matter is, the unions have placed a huge financial burden on the domestic car makers for a long time. One could argue that GM should have dealt with the UAW/CAW decades ago when they had the chance, instead of giving them what they wanted simply because GM could afford it. But nevertheless, GM is paying more on health care costs per car, then the steel that goes into making them--over $7 billion/yr. I know someone will come out and say that it's wrong to cut the salaries of the working people building the vehicles, especially when the executives are making millions, and I will not argue. However, I think we can agree that something is not right when (until recently) Ford wages for plant workers averaged $71/hr, while the rest of the industry was making $49. If you crunch the numbers, it becomes clear why the domestics fail to compete with vehicles priced to match their import competitors.



ErnstNL said:


> The auto industry relies on a supply chain that is massive in scope. If GM and Chrysler goes under, Ford will too, and Magna and possibly Nissan, it's a set of dominoes standing on a banana peel.
> 10 of K's of jobs lost, the start of a massive depression.
> Wallow in misery...


I was waiting for someone to make this point. It is increasingly frustrating to see so many people quick to blame GM et al for being "horrible" corporations, when there is a good chance that many of your jobs _depend_ on a job at one of these "horrible" corporations somewhere down the line. Sure, you can complain over the automotive bailout money going to mismanaged companies, but have you looked over to the financial institutions' side of the fence (aka. the _real_ creators of this economic mess)? While with the banking system in Canada we have yet to bail out any financial institutions, take a look at what our taxpayers to the south (and virtually those in every other developed country right now) are looking at paying. My point of frustration here is that the cost to bailout the automakers is petty cash compared to that of the financial institutions, which really create _nothing at all_. AIG just posted a $62-billion dollar *loss* this past quarter--and we don't mind? Most large companies don't even come close to _revenue_ figures that size. Sure, AIG is a large part of the financial system, but folks let's be realistic...the GDP they create is largely from shifting paper among the financial industry itself. All these packaged derivatives and beautiful financial instruments may have looked nice on the income statements of yesteryear, but they really create no new jobs, and no new goods for consumption. If a company can be allowed to lose $62-billion from shifting paper, surely our free-market economic system should allow it to fail, instead of picking on the companies that hold perhaps the last of our real domestic manufacturing jobs (ie. GM, Ford, Chrysler and the parts companies with them). Whether you like to admit it or not, it's the companies like GM and its supply chain that support the injections to the economy. For every plant job that goes, I'm afraid quite a few feeder jobs nearby will go with it, and those jobs ain't coming back. Suddenly, there are no consumers left to spend.



Adrian. said:


> I wonder, the $7Bn dollar bailout the government is giving Detroit could have definitely provided some nice venture capital for a start up Canadian auto firm like Zenn or even create a nationalised auto manufacturer.
> 
> Just a thought.
> 
> $7 Bn can do a lot of things. I am sure one of them is creating a Canadian car company.


Good luck. 

I'm a man that adores entrepreneurship and innovation, but the auto industry is far too cut-throat to allow for something like that to happen.



ertman said:


> Ya a reccesion was totally predictable, was especially predictable with the market drop I 2007.
> 
> Can you enlighten me if this new bubble bursting as the rates approach zero?, just trying to learn.


Is it a bubble, or a giant hot-air balloon that is slowly deflating? You decide.
Don't quote me though, I'd hate to play the game of the media and pull down consumer confidence further...



FeXL said:


> I wonder if this is going to set off any warning bells in the General's thick skull. Perhaps it is so dense that not even this will register...
> 
> While I'm not enjoying seeing the car makers squirm (well, maybe just a little bit...), I do welcome the wholesale changes this opportunity will create.


On your first point: is it the General that has the thick skull, or a combination of the corporate structure and the consumers? What was once the largest corporation in the world, it should be apparent by now that GM cannot make vast changes overnight. You are absolutely right when you bring up density--the Big Three collectively make up 112 car models, across 15 brands, with 14 000 GM dealerships alone. Perhaps now you can put into perspective the fact that GM cannot react as quickly as say, Honda?

Yes, you can argue it's all the fault of these corporations' mismanagement. But don't be quick to place the blame on the current managers...Wagoner and Lutz haven't been in there long enough to really have influenced any of it. It's the guys of the 60's and 70's that spelled out the future of these companies. Also, don't play the "domestics cars are sh*tboxes" card either, unless you had a late-model domestic in the recent past. I think they deserve credit for the vast improvement in quality over a short-period of time. The quality of the imports are also highly overrated, and this is not only with my own past experience. 

Finally, some have mentioned things about brands like Hummer, and how they'd love to see them go. May I remind you that it was the _consumers_ that chose to drive Hummer H2s to commute 40 km from home to work everyday, not GM. While the domestics placed heavy bets on the SUV, I blame the consumer for believing they _needed_ one. In my opinion, the whole concept of the SUV became so distorted that it really was a load of bullsh*t by the time the oil prices skyrocketed last summer anyway. These companies were simply building the vehicles that the market demanded, and that includes all the holy imports. It was the consumer that wanted to waste our resources in style, not GM. If the latter isn't true, wouldn't we all be driving a Prius? 

On to your (and my) last point, change is exactly what needs to come of it. While the costs of bailing out the auto industry is high, letting it fail is not only higher, but it closes many doors. If the right measures are put in place, I truly believe a company like GM can pull it off and come out of this better than ever. I also think that if GM cuts a lot of its brand duplication, and focuses on its strong products, it would be further ahead than its competitors. Yes, I'm being serious. At this past Autoshow, only two car manufacturers left me impressed from new product, and GM was one of them (Hyundai the other). Specifically, products such as the G8 (amazing value, finally a Pontiac that excites me, and it's affordable) and the new CTS (genuinely remarkable car, from every aspect) are very promising. I also have a lot of faith in the Camaro (modern-retro, unlike the completely retro and mis-targeted Challenger, and aging Mustang...the car could fight the import coupes and be successful), and the Volt. Specifically the Volt, I believe it is the car that GM can use to prove it can out-innovate again. To me, it already has the interesting appeal that the iPod shares, and I'm in the generation that will be purchasing it.


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## lumpy cheeseman (Aug 28, 2008)

chas_m said:


> The US's failure to nationalise health care will eventually kill GM and several other large businesses, as they cannot compete with private health care against countries that provide health care (and generally do so far more efficiently than the US).
> 
> I predicted this about four years ago, I'd say GM has less than a year left to live.





ertman said:


> Also nationlizing healthcare allows for controlling costs. Where in the States the market decides, which mean they will charge you as much as they can before you stop going there, hence the crazy costs.


there are a lot of us that wish for nationalized health care. i'm one of them. the cost of health care here is re-f'en-dicoulous. my last er bill (really bad food poisoning) was like 2grand (usd). 500 of which was the doctor who i saw for all of 5 minutes. i was there for 2 hours, had a cat scan, an iv, and a sedative. 2 grand....



rgray said:


> GM seems to be leaning a lot on the Volt but that POS has a range of 40 miles!! To put that in perspective it would not get me to work and one has to wonder how much that range would be diminished if you turn on heaters in a Canadian winter. That range is somewhat ridiculous in the face of the 3000 od mile distance across the country.... Can these people read a map?


my understanding of the volt is 40miles BEFORE the gas generator kicks in. i was just watching a show on Planet Green yesterday or the day before where they were explaining the Volt. 40 miles on battery alone, then the gas motor kicks in to charge the batteries and run the motors that propel the vehicle. i forget the estimated "mpg" of running the gas motor, but it wasnt a low number either.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

> Can these people read a map?


can you read a spec sheet? 

The vast bulk of Canadians drive less than 40 miles round trip anyways for work/daily - that's what it's designed to address.
The fossil generator is to run the vehicle when the batteries are flat.
It also plugs in to any standard outlet for slow charge.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

Carnegie Mellon University just completed a study on the VOLT that said it will never become cost effective because of the weight and cost of batteries needed to deliver a 40 mile range on a single charge. The "sweet spot" is 20 miles.
My question is, didn't GM check this out? WTF??

CMU study indicates the Chevy Volt may be too expensive to be effective


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## arminia (Jan 27, 2005)

GM says there is 'substantial doubt' about its viability - Mar. 5, 2009


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## hayesk (Mar 5, 2000)

MacDoc said:


> can you read a spec sheet?
> 
> The vast bulk of Canadians drive less than 40 miles round trip anyways for work/daily - that's what it's designed to address.
> The fossil generator is to run the vehicle when the batteries are flat.
> It also plugs in to any standard outlet for slow charge.


Yes, but which is more efficient? Using gas to power a vehicle, or generating the electricity and transmitting it to your home to charge your vehicle?

People seem to forget the cost and environmental impact of generating and transmitting electricity to charge electric vehicles. You may be spending less on gas, but you'll be paying a much higher electric bill.


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

The increase in your electrical bill will be more than offset by the decrease in gasoline usage. They claim pennies a km which is much less than the average 10 cents per km for gasoline. If gasoline was much better, we'd be using gasoline generators instead of a central electrical utility but we're not.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

hayesk said:


> Yes, but which is more efficient? Using gas to power a vehicle, or generating the electricity and transmitting it to your home to charge your vehicle?
> 
> People seem to forget the cost and environmental impact of generating and transmitting electricity to charge electric vehicles. You may be spending less on gas, but you'll be paying a much higher electric bill.


Electrical generation can be highly efficient, but the distribution has some rather grievous losses, though I think if the chargers were intelligent, the cars could charge at night, when demand is low but the generators are still running.

And doesn't Ontario have some very real problems with power usage that regularily approaches (or exceeds) generating capacity???


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## CDN420 (Jan 13, 2009)

dona83 said:


> The increase in your electrical bill will be more than offset by the decrease in gasoline usage. They claim pennies a km which is much less than the average 10 cents per km for gasoline. If gasoline was much better, we'd be using gasoline generators instead of a central electrical utility but we're not.



good point but you have to look at what is burnt to generate power. I know ontario uses hydro... but many parts of canada do not. for example on the east coast most plants still use coal (except the nuclear plant), and i believe coal is still big out west as well.... the offset of burning coal vs gas in cars for the environment is not even close.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

You are incorrect in that.......major electricity plants of any sort are far more efficient than a variable gasoline engine and so produce less CO2 for the energy produced. Gas vehicles on an end to end energy basis are horridly inefficient.

It's one reason the steady speed charger in the Volt makes sense as it can be optimized while the electric motors carry the variable load.

The major savings are in the taxes....a $3 "fillup" goes about 120 km. against say $10 for gas much of which is tax.



> Only about 15% of the energy from the fuel you put in your tank gets used to move your car down the road or run useful accessories, such as air conditioning. The rest of the energy is lost to engine and driveline inefficiencies and idling. Therefore, the potential to improve fuel efficiency with advanced technologies is enormous.


a modern coal plant gets close to 50% - even older ones are still more efficient energy producers than a car.

Remember this is useable energy against CO2.

There are many other factors.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)




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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

With coal in a central plant, they can capture that carbon more easily and store it underground. Carbon capture is not an option on vehicles without seriously hampering vehicle performance.

BC uses Hydro electricity as well, in case you easterners didn't know.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

In the salt on wounds category


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

There is new muscle in Detroit......name of Obama.....



> *GM chairman to leave US car maker*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


more

BBC NEWS | Business | GM chairman to leave US car maker


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

"GM chairman to leave US car maker" I can just imagine what his golden parachute shall look like when all is said and done.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> "GM chairman to leave US car maker" I can just imagine what his golden parachute shall look like when all is said and done.



Perhaps it will be so heavy that he plummets to the ground and his worthless carcass shatters on the rocks.beejacon


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## ScanMan (Sep 11, 2007)

"I'm doing what I do because it adds a lot of value to the company," Wagoner said in a Dec. 4 interview as GM sought federal aid from the Bush administration. "It's not clear to me that experience in this industry should be viewed as a negative but I'm going to do what's right for the company and I'll do it in consultation with the (GM) board (of directors)."

:lmao:


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Good riddance - though I expect that he will walk away with a large sack of cash. I don't know why GM hired this old AMC retread anyways - it's not like AMC was a success...


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

"(CNN) -- General Motors' outgoing chief executive Rick Wagoner is eligible to receive more than $20 million in his retirement package, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission."

He will walk away from GM ............. all the way to the bank .............. with a smile on his face.

GM's ousted CEO eligible for $20M retirement package - CNN.com


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## ScanMan (Sep 11, 2007)

Dr.G. said:


> He will walk away from GM ............. all the way to the bank .............. with a smile on his face.


As he did in his business life, he won't be flying economy any time soon.


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## JumboJones (Feb 21, 2001)

Smart move getting out before they go bankrupt, unless of course this is paid over a period of time, then he'll be fighting for his pension along with the blue collars.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

MacDoc said:


> There is new muscle in Detroit......name of Obama.....\


As a community organizer, he will make an excellent CEO of Government Motors. What a train wreck!


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

No kidding. What an ignominious way for such a legendary company to go.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

About time somebody organized the place.... ....predator friendly havens are rapidly disappearing thanks to Obama and Cuomo.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

MacDoc said:


> About time somebody organized the place.... ....predator friendly havens are rapidly disappearing thanks to Obama and Cuomo.


Business is rapidly disappearing thanks to Obama.


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## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Macfury said:


> As a community organizer, he will make an excellent CEO of Government Motors. What a train wreck!


Its tough to blam Obama for this economic crisis causing the failures of so many companies. Most of these failures were written a couple of years ago, it just took this long for everything to go belly up.

This speaks more to partisan politics then to educated informed thought and discussion. And no, this is not a remark against Macfury only, same goes for the liberal side.


I doubt the failure of GM has much to do with the influence and or control of the government. This is a complaint that the govt is interfering too much with capitalism, it is a solid point. If this is to be acknowledged, then the opposite must also be accepted, where the govt does nothing and gives no bailout and you would still see the failure of GM. I am not arguing the legitimacy of of small or large governance, but rather the political interference in the survival of GM. 

If GM were to go under it is most likely due to bad management, poor planning and terrible product forecasting. It can be argued that its the costs of healthcare, highwages etc, but other auto manufacturers can be successful in North America, and this cannot be blamed for truely poor sales. 

Another interesting point.
How American is GM? In terms of where their head quarters are? How about how much of their vehicle and parts are manufactured in North America versus what they sell in North America. A couple of years ago, Ford topped that list, followed by Toyota?

I would beinterested in hearing the more up to date stats on this if anyone has this information available.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

etrman: GM should be allowed to go under. It can't be saved by government managers and it's hubris to believe that this will be a good deal for taxpayers. I was just as critical of Bush doing the same thing. There is no market for the cars it sells--just the trucks and SUVs which are doing really well. There is no market big enough for the green vehicles Obama wants Government Motors to build either.

Capitalism has succeeded by marginalizing General Motors. Fools in government can't see that part of captitalism's success is in punishing failed business ventures. The Obama Administration is propping up has-been after has-been.

Mitt Romney suggested a government-supervised controlled bankruptcy and restructuring months ago and he was right.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

MacDoc said:


> About time somebody organized the place.... ....predator friendly havens are rapidly disappearing thanks to Obama and Cuomo.





MacDoc said:


> Too bad you had to ruin a heart felt story with a cheap and seriously stupid shot Sinc......think it about it next time you plant both feet in your mouth so firmly and odiously. I hope the taste of horse**** lingers for a while.
> 
> 
> Irena deserves better than you using her to try and score on your tiresome anti-AGW agitprop.
> Pretty damn low.


I see you have chosen not to apologize for the personal attack and calling me stupid yet MacDoc. Why not?


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

MacDoc said:


> About time somebody organized the place.... ....predator friendly havens are rapidly disappearing thanks to Obama and Cuomo.


Spoken like a true disciple, MacDoc.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

No, a pragmatist who recognizes when the crooks are running the place....and it needs a good rat catcher.










excellent read if you haven't yet.

The Big Takeover : Rolling Stone

I see King Rat ( what cash ) Muloonie still has his tail caught.

••

I liked the shotgun marriage for Chrysler....that might fly with Fiat.

Not 100% sure what's gonna happen with GM.

Change the logo to Gummint Motors maybe.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

You put too much faith in Obama and his administration, MD... your generous claim of being a pragmatist notwithstanding.

Gummint Motors? Gonna operate perpetually in the red, I expect.


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## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Macfury said:


> etrman: GM should be allowed to go under. It can't be saved by government managers and it's hubris to believe that this will be a good deal for taxpayers. I was just as critical of Bush doing the same thing. There is no market for the cars it sells--just the trucks and SUVs which are doing really well. There is no market big enough for the green vehicles Obama wants Government Motors to build either.
> 
> Capitalism has succeeded by marginalizing General Motors. Fools in government can't see that part of captitalism's success is in punishing failed business ventures. The Obama Administration is propping up has-been after has-been.
> 
> Mitt Romney suggested a government-supervised controlled bankruptcy and restructuring months ago and he was right.


I'll agree. We may often have our disagreements regarding political ideology, this is a case where capitalism must flush out the waste.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

Max said:


> Gummint Motors? Gonna operate perpetually in the red, I expect.


Pretty serious misreading of the news ... are you just skimming the headlines or something?

GM has 60 days to save its OWN butt, or it WILL go into bankruptcy. Chrysler has half that to merge, or it too will be in bankruptcy. That's nothing even remotely like the government taking them over.

This is the government USING the money they have already been given (most of it under Bush, it should be noted) to get the car companies to either face reality or die off.

Vastly superior to Bush's plan, which was "give the white-collar people billions, and the blue-collar people the shaft."


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

chas_m said:


> GM has 60 days to save its OWN butt, or it WILL go into bankruptcy. Chrysler has half that to merge, or it too will be in bankruptcy. That's nothing even remotely like the government taking them over...


...says the government, which has turned them all into Government Motors, decided who the president of GM should be and is already telling GM what kind of cars it must build in order to get billions more in aid. The government is now also in the carr warranty business. Brilliant!



chas_m said:


> That's nothing even remotely like the government taking them over...


No, it's really a LOT like government taking them over. The markets understand this and respond by devaluing U.S. automobile stocks.


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## JumboJones (Feb 21, 2001)

Didn't they have 60 days, 60 days ago?


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

MacDoc said:


> No, a pragmatist who recognizes when the crooks are running the place....and it needs a good rat catcher.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





MacDoc said:


> Too bad you had to ruin a heart felt story with a cheap and seriously stupid shot Sinc......think it about it next time you plant both feet in your mouth so firmly and odiously. I hope the taste of horse**** lingers for a while.
> 
> 
> Irena deserves better than you using her to try and score on your tiresome anti-AGW agitprop.
> Pretty damn low.


I see you have chosen not to apologize for the personal attack and calling me stupid yet MacDoc. Why not?


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

SINC said:


> I see you have chosen not to apologize for the personal attack and calling me stupid yet MacDoc. Why not?


I have never seen MacDoc apologize for a personal insult, but maybe he will show some class and prove me wrong.


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

Macfury said:


> I have never seen MacDoc apologize for a personal insult, but maybe he will show some class and prove me wrong.


<snort> Where's the "Bookworthy" emoticon?

Despite MacDoc's numerous claims that he only gives as good as he gets, many of us on this otherwise fine community have been slighted, name-called or downright insulted by him without ever doing anything more than post something that did not fit his particular ideology that day.

If he is considering handing out apologies, I'd like to place myself on that long, distinguished list.

Several times...


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Max said:


> No kidding. What an ignominious way for such a legendary company to go.


The end of GM is absolutely pathetic - especially in the light that they haven't built a car that anyone has wanted for the past two decades. A company that made classics like the Impala, Regal, Cutlass, Corvette - reduced to what, shoddy goods like the Torrent, the Enclave, and a bunch of fake, plasticy things they call Cadillacs. Like Rome, it was a long decline, this is just the final twitching of the corpse, which is nothing more than memories of the good old days when buying a GM was something.

I'm surprised that Wagoner's "pension" is a measily $20 Million, though he may be able to score one of the solid gold bicycles if he doesn't mind weaning himself off of his caviar on toast in the morning.

And I think Obama is just going to explode, knowing what we all know, that the North American marques are turkeys, and that the executives of these companies are just playing games, not really wanting to save anything but their own fat pensions and buyouts. And it is obvious, since these same people have steadfastly refused to produce anything resembling real progress or anything resembling what they buying public wants (without being swayed by $12,000 cash back schemes.)

Oh, they have the scheme where GM will pay for all of the car repairs for the first three years - with all of the claims they will end up with, I think Mr. Goodwrench will be bankrupt in three months, when their crudmobiles start falling apart. Better to do what the Japanese did, and make something good, than to panhandle saying that when the car blows up, they will patch it up with some cheap, made in China goods (which are entirely compatible with their current made in China parts).


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

Macfury said:


> I have never seen MacDoc apologize for a personal insult, but maybe he will show some class and prove me wrong.





FeXL said:


> <snort> Where's the "Bookworthy" emoticon?
> 
> Despite MacDoc's numerous claims that he only gives as good as he gets, many of us on this otherwise fine community have been slighted, name-called or downright insulted by him without ever doing anything more than post something that did not fit his particular ideology that day.
> 
> ...


I note that the offending post has been taken down by mods, but the real question I am grappling with, is there appears to be two sets of rules for posting on this forum. 

One set for regular members like us with apologies requested and "vacation time outs" given in similar circumstances and one set of rules that apply only to a certain member.

I think an explanation is in order so all members can conduct themselves accordingly.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Macfury said:


> I have never seen MacDoc apologize for a personal insult, but maybe he will show some class and prove me wrong.


I don't think he is able - they haven't pusblished such a thing in The Star yet...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

SINC said:


> I note that the offending post has been taken down by mods, but the real question I am grappling with, is there appears to be two sets of rules for posting on this forum.
> 
> One set for regular members like us with apologies requested and "vacation time outs" given in similar circumstances and one set of rules that apply only to a certain member.
> 
> I think an explanation is in order so all members can conduct themselves accordingly.


SINC: The "MacDoc rule" has been in effect for as long as I've been here. He gets a free pass. All very hush, hush...let's sweep it under the rug or he might take his toys and go home.


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

*Feds Say the Volt Won't Save GM*



> By Chuck Squatriglia March 30, 2009 | 7:01:45 PMCategories: Chevrolet Volt
> 
> General Motors has all but bet its future on the Chevrolet Volt, but the government says the range-extended electric vehicle won't save the beleaguered automaker.
> "While the Volt holds promise, it likely will be too expensive to be commercially successful in the short term," President Obama's auto task force said in its assessment of GM's restructuring plan.
> ...


Feds Say the Volt Won't Save GM | Autopia from Wired.com

Well....that was short lived.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Obama will decide how Government Motors can win against Toyota? Beautiful. It sounds like something out of _Atlas Shrugged_.


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## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

I had noticed that a lot of people were judging that Obama will help run gl into the ground because they were pushing GM to make fuel efficient cars such as the volt, and yet they are saying it is not economically viable and it isn't going to save it.

Basically as described before, GM is a failure becauses of their own choices. If the government under Obama fails to make GM sucessful, who cares, they should have died on their own, so this point that Obama is going to ruin GM has no real factual basis, as they will have been headed for government recievership.

Bring up some new facts and leave rhetoric on the other pages.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Economical cars would certainly have kept GM from sliding down the sewer so far - but the Volt is too little - too late, and does not have anything resembling high technology, and thus, is a failure. GM even acknowledged that the Volt is a failure in their commercials for it - if you read the fine print, they pretty much say it will never be available at a dealership near you.

GM had the EV1 - and had customers that were quite pleased to have them - but then GM went out and repo'd them, and thus, those customers will not be returning, even if the Volt makes it to a showroom. GM has treated far too many people badly over the years, produced far too much crud, and even the pledge of three years of free repairs is not an attraction - knowing that even though the repairs are free, the cars are so cruddy that one would be spending mucho cash on rental cars while the GM products is keeping Mr. Goodwrench busy...

I think what is happening is that Obama went to the table, asked what these companies needed, and wanted a real plan in writing within two months. So instead, the executives feasted, flew their private jets to Palm Springs for noontime golf, and came up with a plan that basically said "give is money or else". In return, Obama said "well, you people are so pathetic that I'd rather bail out Madoff - because he is less corrupt and contemptuous..."


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## rgray (Feb 15, 2005)

EvanPitts said:


> I think what is happening is that Obama went to the table, asked what these companies needed, and wanted a real plan in writing within two months. So instead, the executives feasted, flew their private jets to Palm Springs for noontime golf, and came up with a plan that basically said "give is money or else". In return, Obama said "well, you people are so pathetic that I'd rather bail out Madoff - because he is less corrupt and contemptuous..."


Indeed. And yet that sh!t-weasel Wagoner (and I am sure, other so-called executives) is (are) going to walk away with a 20 mil pension(s) as a reward for riding a once-great company into the dirt.....


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

ertman said:


> I had noticed that a lot of people were judging that Obama will help run gl into the ground because they were pushing GM to make fuel efficient cars such as the volt, and yet they are saying it is not economically viable and it isn't going to save it.


Except Obama says he is going to help save it. Therefore it will be Obama's plan that puts the final nail in the coffin of Government Motors. He ought to have let it die on its own. Much cheaper, and no responsibility for its demise. Now the damned fool will be complicit.


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## rgray (Feb 15, 2005)

Macfury said:


> Except Obama says he is going to help save it. Therefore it will be Obama's plan that puts the final nail in the coffin of Government Motors. He ought to have let it die on its own. Much cheaper, and no responsibility for its demise. Now the damned fool will be complicit.


Government Motors - I like the phrase.

Many economists agree that no just GM but also AIG and all the others should have been allowed to go bankrupt. The reasoning being tht in bankruptcy the books are laid bare in public so we can see what went wrong and have a chance to fix it for the future. These bailout procedure mean that these companies' book do not get full public scrutiny.

My personal question in all of this is "why is no-one being charged/arrested?".


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

rgray said:


> My personal question in all of this is "why is no-one being charged/arrested?".


Because the federal government was complicit in much of this, drafting specific regulations that allowed this sort of garbage in the first place. The CEOs didn't do anything illegal--they were just following federal regulations.


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## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Macfury said:


> Except Obama says he is going to help save it. Therefore it will be Obama's plan that puts the final nail in the coffin of Government Motors. He ought to have let it die on its own. Much cheaper, and no responsibility for its demise. Now the damned fool will be complicit.


True, but he is not at fault for the current situation, and if he does anything, and it still fails, he would have been the one to put the last nail in the coffin. but he did nothing to cause the collapse, he just didn't do anything to save it. It just doesn't make sense to blame a politician for failing to stop this.

Yeah, it should be allowed to go under, but I think that the government would still step in even with a different president. 

However, I liked the fact that he said no to their "plans" and has given them a deadline or they will recieve no further help, and likely go into a government controlled recievership.

I really dislike the entitlement view of these companies. They are entitled to the money. It really ticked me off when Chrysler did it here in Canada, with the threat of leaving, which had to be empty because alienating customers from a small market of Canada would automatically lead to bankruptcy.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

ertman said:


> True, but he is not at fault for the current situation, and if he does anything, and it still fails, he would have been the one to put the last nail in the coffin. but he did nothing to cause the collapse, he just didn't do anything to save it. It just doesn't make sense to blame a politician for failing to stop this.\


No, he is getting into managing the product line of GM, firing its president, and getting the feds into the car warranty business. He's fully exposed now.


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## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Macfury said:


> No, he is getting into managing the product line of GM, firing its president, and getting the feds into the car warranty business. He's fully exposed now.


I believe this is an over simplification of what is happenning without providing some additional details of why they are doing certain things.

Managing product lines: telling GM they can't make what they feel like but what the market demands. Also, telling GM that the volt is not a feasible product that will save GM.
Warranty business: don't know much about this, so feel free to inform me, but it sounds more like protecting the consuming public from a companys collapse.
Firing of GM's president: Did the govt actually fire him, or did he quit? Also, why? if they did fire him. From the sounds of it, it seems like GM was more about wanting money, while changing nothing, and telling the govt that if they do nothing all these jobs will be lost etc.

This does not state that he is responsible for GMs demise,as under a more capitalistic regime, GM would fail, and the government is responsible for letting it fail, when the fault would lie at the hands of the management. Yet, everyone is pointing their fingers at politicians , because it is their fault for trying to stop a failure of the company. What should be said is why? is Obama trying to save GM instead of letting it go under. This would seem to be a better more thought out criticism, where the intention and actions are being challenged, vs what argued on these boards. Presenting Arguments regarding how something is bad or good and relating it to rationality will be significantly more effective at convincing myself of your particular point.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

ertman said:


> Managing product lines: telling GM they can't make what they feel like but what the market demands. Also, telling GM that the Volt is not a feasible product that will save GM.


The most profitable GM lines are trucks and SUVs. They are telling GM to stop their most profitable lines. The Volt? Of no interest to me, but how does the government know it won't sell?



ertman said:


> Warranty business: don't know much about this, so feel free to inform me, but it sounds more like protecting the consuming public from a company's collapse.


That's exactly what they're doing. Why? Why should the taxpayer cover the risky purchase of a Government Motors vehicle from a company which has imminent failure written all over it?



ertman said:


> Firing of GM's president: Did the govt actually fire him, or did he quit? Also, why? if they did fire him. From the sounds of it, it seems like GM was more about wanting money, while changing nothing, and telling the govt that if they do nothing all these jobs will be lost etc.





> Obama Fires GM Chief in Effort to Save U.S. Auto Industry


NewsHour Extra: Obama Fires GM Chief in Effort to Save U.S. Auto Industry | March 31, 2009 | PBS



ertman said:


> This does not state that he is responsible for GMs demise,as under a more capitalistic regime, GM would fail, and the government is responsible for letting it fail, when the fault would lie at the hands of the management. Yet, everyone is pointing their fingers at politicians , because it is their fault for trying to stop a failure of the company. What should be said is why? is Obama trying to save GM instead of letting it go under. This would seem to be a better more thought out criticism, where the intention and actions are being challenged, vs what argued on these boards. Presenting Arguments regarding how something is bad or good and relating it to rationality will be significantly more effective at convincing myself of your particular point.


Obama is responsible for making the demise of Government Motors as costly to taxpayers and as protracted as possible. Why is he doing it? My best guess is that he possesses the hubris to believe he knows how to get GM to make the cars he thinks America should drive and want to buy--all evidence to the contrary.

This is the same character who is deciding whether Fiat should merge with Chrysler. Obama is responsible for erasing the few boundaries left between government and business. Barney Frank has already requested powers to set salary levels for all bank employees under the TARP plan--not just CEOs. Banks attempting to pay back their TARP loans out of fear of government mismanagement are being told whether or not they're allowed to by the Treasury Department.

It's pretty clear that this is all about government control of industry. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/business/01bank.html



> President Obama did not provide specifics about the conditions that would allow banks to repay the loans quickly. At a meeting at the White House on Friday, at least two chief executives, Lloyd C. Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and Kenneth I. Chenault of American Express, asked the president to provide detailed guidance for returning the TARP money quickly.
> 
> Mr. Obama acknowledged that quick repayment could be a positive signal to the markets but expressed concern about undermining the administration’s efforts to bolster lending.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Hmmm seems Harper et al on are on the same path....

Don't see much ranting there......


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Harper is just going along with whatever the U.S. is saying, in hopes of benefiting from U.S. taxpayer largesse. He is not, however, telling the companies which cars it should be producing, or firing their CEOs. You lose on this one.


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

For sure trucks and SUV are super profittable but GM made a huge mistake in putting all their eggs in that one basket, whereas Toyota has a nice line of trucks and SUVs yet their economy class cars, the Yaris, Corolla, and Matrix, are very well built and have continued to sell very well until the industry wide slowdown. Don't forget the VW Bus of the 21st century, the Prius. The new Chevy Cruze looks like a carbon copy of the NA spec Ford Focus which has been a flop so far and can't be replaced soon enough by the Mazda 3-like Euro spec Focus. The new Fiesta is sure to be a winner over the mediocre Chevy Aveo and will give the Yaris, Fit, and Versa a run for their money.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Sure, GM has deserved to go under--but its truc/SUV line is still profitable. This is the type of vehicle Obama doesn't want the company to make. These other companies and their superior cars will certainly fill the void left by Government Motors. It's not like we even have a Big Three any more.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

You lose again:

U.S. Plans Key Role In Naming GM Board - CBS News



> The Obama administration will play a key role in reshaping General Motors' board of directors over the next six months, potentially giving it even greater control in the management of the storied American manufacturer.


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## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

This is not a win or lose argument. I would like to point that they will play a big role in management, but also agree they should not be playing such a role, but I do understand that because they wish to save GM that using tax payers dollars they atleast do what they can to protect their money from wasteful management. Besides if suvs were a big cash grab, and no one does it better than America, however it the whole eggs in one basket approach that got them where they are. Suv sales will never decline until........ They did. They should not be wasting their money on this, but any administration would gave sunk billions into this, democratic or republican.

I do agree that this is all about him trying for government to have more control over industry, because self governance has worked out so far. They actually do need some more regulations in the states regarding some areas, but this would seem to be an over reaction, which I blame on the president, senate, and congress. 

Well, Macfury, I do agree with some of your points, however I disagree with others. This is something we are just not going to come to an agreement on, because the message board does not allow for a good flow of communication, so I'll let it at pretty much what I have already stated.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

well, ertman, I see your point if you have confidence in the government to handle what they have taken on. I simply haven't seen them showing any business acumen. GM is in trouble because people voted with their wallets. I don't want to see the government try to reverse that decision, especially since they can't force people to buy the cars that are produced.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

The one sector that is so far escaping any blame in the demise of the auto industry is general, is the buying public.

Seems to me that people went far beyond their means in some kind of twisted race to one-up their neighbours. For many years, people were content to buy a new car and drive it for eight to 10 years before trading it in. There was also a ready market for good used vehicles traded in by the few who had the money to have a new vehicle every two or three years. 

But that all changed in the early 90s when things like zero or 1% interest and much longer terms to buy or lease a car became available. Suddenly that new car didn't have to be paid off in three years and now you could take five or even six years.

Then came the "still owe money on your current vehicle?" not to worry, "we can refinance and put you in yet another brand new vehicle" campaigns and people bit. Our neighbour is on his third new Subaru in four years, this one a snazzy new convertible. Other guys I know got a new $50,000 truck loaded to the nines every 18 months.

And on and on it went until so much was owed banks and manufacturer's credit departments that the house of cards collapsed. No one has a need for a new vehicle that often, they instead have a want for that new vehicle. Consumers wants have now outstripped their needs by far and it is just one tiny part of the overall financial disaster we are facing.

Look at families who live in 3,400 square foot homes ( half a million bucks) with a car (Beemer or Lexus), a SUV (Mercedes or Escalade) an RV ($100,000 plus Class A), a boat ($60,000 job) and the list goes on inside the home. Two or even three 46 to 52 inch TVs are common. Vacations every winter to the surf and sand, the list goes on and on.

So the next time you may not want to be so quick to blame the banks. Take a look around you at all those "wants", then be hard on yourself and check your real "needs". It may surprise you.

Me? We got two new vehicles in 2001 and we are still driving them both. I got an HD TV back in 2006 and my other TVs are the CRTs we bought years back still working just fine, thanks. My 1,060 sq. ft. home was $97,000 in 1988 and I have only two years left on my mortgage. Incidentally, my salary when I bought the house was about half its value, $55,000. Compare that to your current salary when you paid how much for your current house? To be fair, my wife did work part time once the kids were in school and earned about $20,000 beginning then, most of which went annually to keep our daughter in university for five years.


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

We just bought/built a brand new home in Sherwood Park and I'm proud to say that we are now mortgage free!!!

We do, however, possess a huge line of credit.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

Excellent post Sinc!
It seems to me that we are coming out of a period where our whole economic health has been predicated on infinite growth-endless expansion. The debt cycle is really an expression of that mind set, and I think we are starting to see that it isn't sustainable. That being the case, it means that the current economic crisis may actually be an evolution to something quite different than what we've known in the past. There can't be endless more when the environment that sustains it is finite.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

SINC: I've heard that one of the first things GM did with its bail-out money was to finance a series of even more attractive credit packages for new buyers.

My father always paid cash for his cars, as I do, although he bought new and I buy used. Even though the dealership likes the profit they make on car loan packages they always found it difficult so say no to the solid cash infusion he offered.


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## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Slightly new conversation, I'd like to make a comment too.



> So the next time you may not want to be so quick to blame the banks. Take a look around you at all those "wants", then be hard on yourself and check your real "needs". It may surprise you.


This is true. Thae banks are not completely at fault for the economic situation. Although they did not help, I'd say it is a 50/50 split between the public and the banks for the banking problems. Although the banks could have done more to not make it so bad. While in Canada we had some of our own issues, our banking system is far more conservative, and we aren't seeing the same problems, but ya, consumers definately played a big part.





Macfury said:


> SINC: I've heard that one of the first things GM did with its bail-out money was to finance a series of even more attractive credit packages for new buyers.
> 
> My father always paid cash for his cars, as I do, although he bought new and I buy used. Even though the dealership likes the profit they make on car loan packages they always found it difficult so say no to the solid cash infusion he offered.


REALLY? Finance packages.... well that was dumb. Ya, I have bought my cars with cash, used in my case, but I would consider financing a car purchase. It has more to do with do I need it now, can I afford it(Cashflow), and alot of other questions. I don't see anything wrong with using financing if you need to, I just would avoid it because of the interest.



Intersting note in Canada hasn't the average age of vehicles on the road be been getting older... so in Canada doesn't that mean on a per person basis we are buying cars less often, or atleast used ones. The rising sales in cars was due to an increase in drivers and not to more consumerism? I guess in Canada we have less money to spend because of taxes, and we spend all our incomes on electronics, macs, ipods, tim hortons? and stuff.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

No government run automobile company had ever lasted - like British Leyland.

Of course there is Renault, but as I said, I am talking automobile companies that make something that I would want to drive... beejacon

Government Motors would pretty much be the end of the Mark Of Excellence - like, GM should have been sued for that logo, unless they can prove in a court of law that "excellence" actually means "barely passible, not quite garbage, and less defective than a Chrysler Neon"...

The good times have stopped rolling for GM - no more of their classic cars, like the Vega, the Cimmaron, the Oldsmobile Diesel, the 8-6-4 Engine, the Fiero, the Reatta, the Alliante, the Asuna and dozens of other forgettable vehicles. Time for Chrysler to take advantage of the situation and gain marketshare in the Crudmobile category (maybe take over Lada and get some of that technology before the Kremlin euthanizes it).


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

SINC said:


> Me? We got two new vehicles in 2001 and we are still driving them both. I got an HD TV back in 2006 and my other TVs are the CRTs we bought years back still working just fine, thanks. My 1,060 sq. ft. home was $97,000 in 1988 and I have only two years left on my mortgage. Incidentally, my salary when I bought the house was about half its value, $55,000. Compare that to your current salary when you paid how much for your current house? To be fair, my wife did work part time once the kids were in school and earned about $20,000 beginning then, most of which went annually to keep our daughter in university for five years.


I still have a 30" widescreen CRT as my main television with no reason to go to HDTV anytime soon (if I wanna watch a game on HD, there are a lot of bars I can go to). I've paid cash for that TV which I bought used, my hockey equipment which I bought all end of season at up to 50% off ($1500 goalie pads for $750), all my computers, if you can't pay cash you can't afford it. The only reason one should use a credit card is to take advantage of the rewards and it seems like only half the population is diligent enough to use a credit card responsibly.

Any stimulus package consisting of enticing consumers to borrow money to spend is stupid and will only get everyone back in the hole. Infrastructure should've been priority number one for the Harper Government. Why are they insistent on making people buy vehicles they don't need? And I agree that people should only buy what they can afford to pay back in less than four years if they absolutely have to finance. The only loans I think are worth it are student loans because it's towards an education and mortgages because it's better than paying rent, any other loan, especially on something that depreciates like crazy, is just unwise. I took out a 0% car loan last year I admit with 3 years to go but at least my car is worth more than how much I owe, I can't say the same for some people I know. ($18000 left on a 2005 Sebring that has a market value of less than $8000, my goodness) As soon as the car is paid off I'm going to start making the same payments towards a saving accounts towards a new car. Heck little things like switching to prepaid cellular has saved me a lot of money, to the tune of $400+ in the past 6 months. With postpaid, you don't really think about how much you're using your phone until you receive a heart attack inducing bill. 

My 1000 sq ft condo was $126,500 when I bought it in 2007 with a salary that was more like almost a third ($45,000 a year) and I have 15 years left on the mortgage. It's really hard though with median house prices at $300,000 around my area but my wife and I are saving agressively to buy a house by 2014. My brother in law bought a brand new house in Leduc for $319,000 last year. The general rule that housing related costs should be no more than 30% of your annual gross salary (amounts to around 4x your salary assuming 25% down @ 25 years) is a very good rule of thumb used by a lot of Canadian banks but unfortunately was ignored by a good number of American banks. Buying a house that's only twice your salary is a very good rule of thumb but I find largely unfeasible with today's overinflated housing prices.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I'm the same way. I still have SONY Wega CRT that I'm perfectly happy with. Some of the people who jumped to LCD or plasma have already replaced their screens twice trying to keep up with the latest picayune improvements. I drive a 2004 car and operate a G5 because I haven't needed to run any Intel program as yet. No itch to get more than I can actually use and appreciate.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

Macfury, we are alike. I have a 27" Sony Trinatron from 2000, a G4 iBook, and a 2004 Toyota Echo. I am considering one of the new MacMini computers, however.


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

Excellent post SINC!


SINC said:


> But that all changed in the early 90s when things like zero or 1% interest and much longer terms to buy or lease a car became available. Suddenly that new car didn't have to be paid off in three years and now you could take five or even six years.


This reminded me of an article I posted in the "Saving The Big Three - Take II" thread. Since it seems topical, I'll post it again here: Why the Auto Bailout's a Dead End | Mother Jones


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Good article, Pingu.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Looks like the stage is set for the bankruptcy to reorganize



> GM's new CEO open to bankruptcy 'if it's required'
> 
> The Associated Press
> 
> ...


reportonbusiness.com: GM's new CEO open to bankruptcy 'if it's required'

I'm trying to recall...did Chrysler go bankrupt last time?? or just get bailed???


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Should have gone bankrupt right off. This expensive sideshow is a scam.


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

MacDoc said:


> I'm trying to recall...did Chrysler go bankrupt last time?? or just get bailed???


It just got bailed out - but it was in much better shape than it is now: Editorial: Chrysler Suicide Watch 44: Will the Last One Out of the Building… | The Truth About Cars

A controlled bankruptcy of GM doesn't need to lead to liquidation, and could be a way to get rid of legacy costs. At the same time, if Obama introduces radical health care reform the GM retirees won't need their expensive health care benefits as much...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

PenguinBoy said:


> At the same time, if Obama introduces radical health care reform the GM retirees won't need their expensive health care benefits as much...


Sure, it will merely shift the cost of the health care back to the employees. GM retirees will be quick to complain about the downgrade in their health care offerings, just as the senior drug benefit program in the U.S. was a downgrade for them, but they will have no recourse except to accept the fact that public programs aren't a benefit to them.


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## Radio Flyer (Feb 11, 2007)

I'd like to expand on the value of a point made by dona83.


> if you can't pay cash you can't afford it


Not withstanding purchasing a house and having a mortgage not borrowing, not incurring debt is a much safer and more flexible way to run our lives. Saving for big items, TVs, computers, and yes, that vehicle allows a person to alter plans for the inevitable washer breakdown or other emergency. If we don't plan ahead and save, those emergencies always seem to happen shortly after we've made a BIG purchase on credit and add to the debt load.

The other benefit to not using credit is it reduces impulse buying. Having the time to save for an item provides time to do research, compare features and get a deal. Maybe that's why we have Macs instead of PCs 

Living on credit is insidious, I don't know how people living on credit can do it.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

They complain about the costs of health and benefits - how about this - abolish all of this nonsense, pay the worker the real amount of money, and then corporations will be unable to rob the worker of their rightfully earned cash.

If companies are lousy to work for, filled with nepotism, favouritism, arbitrary rules, dangerous working conditions, lack of basic safety and healthy conditions - then they should be paying their workers large - and going out of business when their management fails in their basic tasks.

Also, there should be an absolute cap on wage scales, so that the top dog is allowed to make no more than 4 times that of the lowest paid workers - that would abolish corruption, and if the executives wanted to cash in on fat stock deals - then the worker would be able to as well.

The people on boards of directors should not be working all sides of the fence- they can sit on one board only, so that they are more keen to keep the business in good order.

It's time to stop protecting the corrupt and greedy fakers that "run" companies - it's time for Capitalism to make the big cull, so that we can get back to the task of making progress. And progress is why GM is failing, because they failed to make any progress or improvements at all - they were all about shovelling money into DiTech.Com, and scoring large on the sub-prime craze, while forgetting to make any decent cars that people would want. $1.40/litre gas was the spike that killed the General...


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

ooookkkkkaaaaay.....  



> *GM-Segway vehicle in the works*
> 
> Apr 07, 2009 04:30 AM
> NEW YORK–A solution to the world's urban transportation problems could come from two wheels not four, according to executives for General Motors Corp. and Segway Inc.
> ...


a little desperation perhaps....


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

> *GM said to be in ‘intense' bankruptcy preparations*
> Reuters
> 
> NEW YORK — — General Motors Corp. is in “intense” and “earnest” preparations for a possible bankruptcy filing, a source familiar with the company's plans told Reuters Tuesday.
> ...


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

^^^
So their "plan" is to crank out even more giant, smog producing, obsolete V-8 vehicles because they make fat profit margins - while they are going to put everything else, like cars, into a company that will fold - good plan GM. Maybe if they made something even remotely modern - like maybe a vehicle with real fuel injection, and maybe a vehicle with paint that didn't just fly off in big huge sheets...

But GM is all about gee-gaws, like OnStar, XM, DVD Video for the kiddies - and nothing about substance. It's time to put this dinosaur out of it's misery. They think they can "fix" the company by killing off names, but in the end, it doesn't matter what the name is if it is a turd on four wheels.

Not that Chrysler does it better - but at least Chrysler makes a few cars that look cool, though have even worse quality, fit and finish than GM, and even more retrograde technologies. A Fiat and Chrysler merger should fit the bill for biodegradability because anyone that remembers the Fiat 10 will attest to how fast they broke down in the environment...


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Who wants to volunteer



> GM and Segway trying to reinvent urban transportation
> Posted on April 7th, 2009 by Robert Adams | Posted under: Future/Concept, GM, Other makes
> 
> Subscribe to our RSS feed or get updates by Email for all the latest spy photos, videos, news and reviews!
> ...



more
Segway and GM building deathtrap of a vehicle


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

MacDoc, your hotlinking caught up with you!


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Tick tock.....



> *Chopping block: GM looks to ditch weaker units*
> 'Eliminating brands and dealers needed to be started years ago'
> 
> BARRIE MCKENNA
> ...


more

reportonbusiness.com: Chopping block: GM looks to ditch weaker units

snip



> Well-organized dealers fought GM at every step in its efforts to rationalize its bloated network with threats of costly lawsuits; they were aided by restrictive franchise laws in dozens of states that block auto makers from selling directly to customers. That has saddled the company with more than 6,700 dealers - *nearly five times as many as Toyota - while selling about a third as many cars per dealership*.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

This is silly, since GM does not own the dealerships - the dealers do. Closing dealers will simply lead to less cars being sold. If GM is selling fewer cars per dealership than say, Toyota, it all comes back to the same thing - trying to pawn off obsolete crudmobiles that no one wants without giant incentives.

These executives will stop at nothing in their assignment of blame - when it is themselves that are the only thing to blame, since they are the ones that backtracked on items like the PNGV program, introducing practical and safe to drive front wheel drive, fuel eficiency, emissions standards and etc. At the same time, they glued on ugly plastic panels onto their crudmobiles, has proprietary OnStar for selected GM products only, and persisted in thrifting their vehicles to the max, while the rest of the industry moved forward.

GM has shown more "alternative fuels" vehicles than anyone else, but does not produce even a single example of it. The EV1 had a certain popularity in the Southwest - and GM saw fit to go out and steal them away from their owners for no known reason. Those buyers soon gobbled up every Prius and Impulse that came off the boat.

GM, despite years of experience at making big diesel engines for trucks, produces not one example of a diesel for passenger or fleet use - giving this market away to Benz and Volkswagen. They cite the disaster of the Oldsmobile engine endlessly, that because they couldn't get away with slapping some diesel heads on a regular Chevy engine, that people "don't want diesels" - despite the numbers of TDI's on the roads these days.

As for small cars, they had the Chevette, though it was nasty was also cheap - something that they do not offer, though they have the Aveo which is nasty but does not have the advantage of being cheap. 

Cadillacs look like crudmobiles, and Cadillac buyers know it, and have gone elsewhere for their luxury fetish - notably all of the buyers that are entirely happy in their "foreign" products, like the Lexus, Infiniti and Benzes. They also failed to produce something in the sports-luxury category, surrendering this to BMW and Acura and the rest.

But GM now makes the claim that it is the number of dealerships that is the obvious problem - showing the real problems - the entire lack of thinking in upper management that has lead the once world leader in vehicle production to the brink of bankrupcy. The faster they are gone, the better, because the emply plants could soon be filled with the production of progressive minded vehicles that people really want - rather than just being conned in by the endless 0% financing with $12,000 rebate to buy some crud that should have been out of production in 1974...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

EP: This part also had me laughing:



> ....all Americans share blame for the company's decline, according to Kent Hughes, director of the global competitiveness program at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.
> 
> "We should all have seen it coming," he said. "We have all contributed to Detroit's woes - demanding low gas prices and large cars, tolerating currency intervention by our competitors, and failing to develop policies to free American industry from the burden of health care costs."


Except other companies in exactly the same circumstances have prospered. What a laughable joke this finger-pointing is. He just might as well have said to free American industry from over-regulation and CAFE standards, but he had a hand-picked lefty laundry list to kvetch about. Let's blame Detroit's woes not on low gas prices, but on our _demand_ for low gas prices, which we all know has immediate effects at the pump.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

It is all part of trying to make the GM disaster somehow a shared, community problem. Yikes. GM is paying the price for decades of arrogance.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Whatever our views on publicly funded health care, the comments of this institution essentially tell us that GM could have done better by shifting the burden of health care to the taxpayer, instead of the car buyer.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Just to add to the drama - GM is recalling the 1.5 Million cars they built with plastic spark plug covers that melt, burst into flames, and burn the car to the ground.

A dude on TV yesterday was talking about GM's arrogance when his car burst into flames last year. How they scolded him for setting his own car on fire, or of not maintaining it properly, and how none of this was GM's fault. Then he went on to mention that after the insurance claim was settled and he had cash - he has been mighty happy with his Honda.

Yes, even in the death throes, GM can still tick off their few remaining customers - and despite the three decades of being whipped in the butt for poor quality and inferior designs (with their market share falling precipitously as their customers fled to anyone else), their engineers can still figure out how to set a car on fire, thus preserving all of the know-how they acquired with the Vega...


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

EvanPitts said:


> Just to add to the drama - GM is recalling the 1.5 Million cars they built with plastic spark plug covers that melt, burst into flames, and burn the car to the ground.
> 
> A dude on TV yesterday was talking about GM's arrogance when his car burst into flames last year. How they scolded him for setting his own car on fire, or of not maintaining it properly, and how none of this was GM's fault. Then he went on to mention that after the insurance claim was settled and he had cash - he has been mighty happy with his Honda.
> 
> Yes, even in the death throes, GM can still tick off their few remaining customers - and despite the three decades of being whipped in the butt for poor quality and inferior designs (with their market share falling precipitously as their customers fled to anyone else), their engineers can still figure out how to set a car on fire, thus preserving all of the know-how they acquired with the Vega...




It reminds me of when my mom's Windstar's axle snapped in half on the highway when the van had 43,000 KMs on it and Ford told us that it was a "predictable occurrence with high mileage vehicles."

My God.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

What is sad is that, at least IMHO, the American car companies could be competitive. They have the knowledge and the capability to build vehicles that would kick butt in the market.
They are just so overrun with ego and arrogance though-it's a real lesson in how pride brings ya down.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

While riding high, they were perfectly happy to sign insane union demands to avoid prolonged strikes. I honestly don't know if those decisions made economic sense over a single decade, or accrued over 20 years, but they are absolutely killing them now. 

While everyone in the U.S. barks and snaps about some acceptable dinky cut in wages or benefits, countries all over the world are building cars which will be sold here. It reminds me of some generic episode of Gilligan's Island, where Gilligan and the Skipper continue an argument aboard a sinking raft.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Adrian. said:


> It reminds me of when my mom's Windstar's axle snapped in half on the highway when the van had 43,000 KMs on it and Ford told us that it was a "predictable occurrence with high mileage vehicles."
> 
> My God.


When I owned a Chevy, I got quite used to hearing the mechanic say that he had [insert some large number here] cars with the same problem that week. I never had a vehicle that spent so much time at the mechanic, nor have I ever had a vehicle that needed five alternators in four years.

So I thought it was funny when they guy that was being interviewed about his car fire mentioned that he is quite happy with his Honda. It reflects the reality. I knew all kinds of "GM people", you know, they have always owned a GMC or a Buick or whatever. And over the years, they have ended up in a Nissan or a Toyota, or a Honda or whatever. My friend's dad was in the market for a new Cadillac, and this guy is from the Old Country, and had always bought a new Cadillac every three years ever since he got off the boat - you know the whole story. So my friend takes his dad out to look for a new Cadillac to replace thiace the Fleetwood - and the salesman is shoing hom things like the DTS and the CTS. The old man says "are you going to show me Cadillacs?" Well, there are no Fleetwoods left, or even El Dorados - so they ended up at Lexus, and the old man sure loves his LS430 with heated craziness and GPS.

As for me, I have really good memories of the years I had my big Buick; all washed away by the fact that GM never did makea real Grand National available, and that the Chevy that replaced the Buick was a turd that cost me a lot of cash but kept my mechanic quite busy. But now that I am on my second Toyota, I'm not looking back, since both Toyotas have been excellent in all regards, and the only unscheduled service my Corolla had was to fix the body where the drunk kid ran into my car (and I got to have a Golf TDI as a driver for that week, which was awesome), while the Matrix has needed nothing at all in three years.

Once Uncle Dick bought a Camry, after a run of Cadillacs and Buicks stretching back to the 40's - I knew that GM was done like dinner. Next to one friend that has a GMC truck for his work, and my Aunt that has a Grand Am, I can't think of anyone I know that has a GM anymore (next to people that have real GMs, like 64 Impalas...)


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

Evan,

I know many people who five years ago would have nothing but a GM in their driveway. The old brainwashed, "Keep the jobs at home" rhetoric justified their mindset. However, even many of those people have moved to Japanese or European brands. 

It will take a lot of work for GM and the Americans to get back consumer confidence. 

You hit the hammer on the head when the man went looking for a luxury car and couldn't find one in a GM lot. For GM luxury just means as big as bloody possible. I was in a $100,000 Escalade about 6 months ago. Brand spanking new 2009, fully loaded, the whole deal. The thing had the same shifter behind the steering wheel as a GMC Sierra, just with a wood grain knob. The dashboard console looked like it was ripped out of a RubberMaid factory. The thing sucked more gas than I could ever fathom, and the wood grain was veneered on. It wasn't even real wood. This is a $100,000 car. You could have a Maserati Quattroporte for 100K.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

mc3251 said:


> What is sad is that, at least IMHO, the American car companies could be competitive. They have the knowledge and the capability to build vehicles that would kick butt in the market.


They did, and GM had the 63-65 Impala - there's more of them cruising the roads and more money to be had in keeping them on the road than say, a 2004 Sunfire.

North America lead the world - and it was Mr. Toyoda who watched a US Army produced film on how to be productive Detroit style way back in '46 - whose company and others have kicked in the doors to Corporate America to watch those houses collapse. Japan didn't beat America - Japan used America the way it was in 1945 to defeat America the way it is now.

It is sad to see, but out of all companies, GM had full experience with the Japanese way, and even operates a number of factories in combination with Japanese manufacturers (and even resells rebadged Japanese cars) - but still can't get it right. Too many bean counters, too much flab, and too little progress or anything of interest.

So sure, they have the knowledge, but the executives don't care - they only worry about scoring some fat profits in any given quarter, and care nothing about the future because they may move on to greener pastures elsewhere. This is unlike in Japan, where a fired executive will be lucky to score a part time job sweeping the street in their neighbourbood. And no failed executive in Japan would ever dream about being hired by the competition - it's all about success and progress; while here it is about scoring fat profits and minimizing actual investment in technology.

As for cars - GM has been professional at building forgettable cars over the past 20 years, though some ugly monstrosities linger in the nightmares. They spent too much time and effort creating "show cars" and no time or effort actually bringing them to fruition in real time. Five years between an announcement and actual product is far too long these days, since the competition can easily get something out the door in two years that will be better in some or all respects...


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

EvanPitts said:


> So sure, they have the knowledge, but the executives don't care - they only worry about scoring some fat profits in any given quarter, and care nothing about the future because they may move on to greener pastures elsewhere. This is unlike in Japan, where a fired executive will be lucky to score a part time job sweeping the street in their neighbourbood. And no failed executive in Japan would ever dream about being hired by the competition - it's all about success and progress; while here it is about scoring fat profits and minimizing actual investment in technology.


This is a very interesting notion Evan. It is gastly how executives who mangle an entire company leave and get hired on the next Forbes 500 down the road. It makes absolutely no sense.

I don't know much about Japanese professional culture, but what you would make sense. Considering how Japanese students take exams extremely seriously and many commit suicide if they do not get into their school or do well on the exams. Very interesting indeed. Honour and pride seem to be reserved for the propaganda shows that the US military puts on to brain wash young men into going to the middle east to fight the "terrorists."


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## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Maybe GM and Segway could really make a mark with a zero-consumption model?



Source: BoingBoing


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Adrian. said:


> This is a very interesting notion Evan. It is gastly how executives who mangle an entire company leave and get hired on the next Forbes 500 down the road. It makes absolutely no sense.


It doesn't, except for the fact that being "hired" has nothing to do with qualifications, abilities, education, or a track record - and everything to do with being in the right golf & country club, and schmoozing the right people. It's nothing more than Corporate Incest - and that is why Corporate America is declining so dramatically, while all of the other nations do things differently...

Well... In France, they let some retard bankrupt a bank on bad deals because his bosses were busy with luncheons and sampling kegs of wine - while the Germans were forced to nationalize "the dumbest bank in the world" after they loaned Lehmann Brothers billions of dollars on the day Lehmann was filing for bankruptcy. Oh, and the Japanese had the dude that went from being one of the richest to being the poorest person in the world. He went from something like $19 Billion to $-20 Billion in a day a few years ago...

Corporate America is a disease that has infested all kinds of places around the world - just look at the quasi-monopoly Canada Steamship Lines, that for over a hundred years was obscenely profitable and now has been thoroughly looted - and their ships that have been wintered over in Hamilton look like lumps of rust. Rust doesn't sleep...



> I don't know much about Japanese professional culture, but what you would make sense. Considering how Japanese students take exams extremely seriously and many commit suicide if they do not get into their school or do well on the exams.


Japanese professional culture is hard core - they really work hard, though in some respects their fifteen year long recession has lead to some relaxation of the old ways. But now, they just have recreation that is hard core. It isn't only Japan, but all over the world, the "have nots" are working hard to pick off the old established order, and are succeeding because Corporate America is just such an easy target.

A guy in my class worked at a place that was entirely CNC, and for years, they were making oil pans for the Big 3. So last year, when things dried up, the owners "made a discovery" that the CNC machines were actually programmable, and that if they had some programmers, they could make parts for other industries. Of course, it was too little, too late, and they went bust. Corporate America at work! In China, they use their CNC machines to clone anything imaginable, including the Apollo spacecraft they cloned for their own space program, and that high-tech spy plane Bush lost to them for a few months. Sure, it will be shoddier, but they will be cheap and numerous.

Corporate America has spent decades making bad decisions and conceding industries to other nations. They completely gave up on things like TV and consumer electronics, then proceeded to give up on computers and are now giving up on cars and other technologies. Wealth and luxury have been the undoing of Corporate America, and the decline is only retarded by the wealth in annuities, which will eventually drain out to the nations that want to compete.



> Very interesting indeed. Honour and pride seem to be reserved for the propaganda shows that the US military puts on to brain wash young men into going to the middle east to fight the "terrorists."


The American's attempt to "wave the flag" at some of the most absurd things - like the patriotic fervor they put around advertising their obsolete V-8 powered, gas guzzling trucks. But then, most "American" vehicles are not made in America, but are Hecho In Mexico - while "Japanese" vehicles are made in increasing numbers in America.

Much of the US is owned by foreigners, and Canada is a big investor, since it is so easy to get involved in the corporate fire sale that has been going on to thirty years on Wall Street. While Corporate America can only see as far as the profit statements at the end of any given quarter, they are doomed to failure because they can not make the key investments in technology and ideas that stoke the economy. One of the only sources of progress is from the Pentagon, which is in a quest to maximize the cost of killing an enemy through the use of high technology.

As for GM, not only were they one of the largest and most profitable corporations, they also built some of the best cars for the money. But then the malaise set in, where thrifting and avoiding key investments became endemic. The doors were first kicked in in 1973 with the first energy crisis, and they did attempt to respond. But the second crisis created an all or nothing attitude, where yes, they needed to adopt some of the ways of the Japanese, but had become addled with the quest for thrifting and ever decreasing quality.

Twenty years later, they were on the ropes, as they had pretty much blown their lead in car production, and were only buoyed up with truck sales - then the doors were kicked in again, and unlike in the 70's, they didn't have the advantage of being the leader, nor did they have the corporate talent that could extricate them from crisis.

Years of closing plants and firing people just served to stoke up their competitors, who for the most part, offer a better and more modern product than GM. The yokels they had left couldn't figure out anything more than to chop more, and the more they chopped, the harder it would be to recover. And now they are in the crunch, as they face the calamity of a massive 1.5 million vehicle recall at a time that no one wants their cars, reminding the consumer about the thirty or more years of thrifting and ever decreasing quality of the GM product.

This doesn't happen in Japan because the Japanese do not thrift their products, but rather, push their product to become better and more expensive - who would have ever thought that a Toyota could compete with Benz in the luxury market?


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

CubaMark said:


> Maybe GM and Segway could really make a mark with a zero-consumption model?
> 
> Source: BoingBoing


I am sure GM engineers can figure out a way of thrifting it and making to burst into flames, and their customer service people can figure out a way of creating a teflon warranty that covers nothing but looks snazzy...


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Adrian. said:


> I know many people who five years ago would have nothing but a GM in their driveway. The old brainwashed, "Keep the jobs at home" rhetoric justified their mindset.


There was a time in my family where every car was either a GM, Ford or Chrysler, with the exception of my dad who had a Volvo. But those days have changed, and my dad is the only one driving a Ford, while everyone else is in a Toyota, Volkswagen, Honda or Mazda.

But then, there used to be people in the family that worked at Ford, GM and AMC; while now they are working at Toyota, Honda and Hyundai...



> It will take a lot of work for GM and the Americans to get back consumer confidence.


Actually, if they just build a decent vehicle that is good value for the money, and stop with the crazy thifting, and maybe even started building some of the cars they had promised years ago - people would wander back. But if GM's "plan" is to not build the Volt and to keep pushing the obsolete gas guzzling V-8s onto the people - they are doomed.



> For GM luxury just means as big as bloody possible. I was in a $100,000 Escalade about 6 months ago. Brand spanking new 2009, fully loaded, the whole deal. The thing had the same shifter behind the steering wheel as a GMC Sierra, just with a wood grain knob. The dashboard console looked like it was ripped out of a RubberMaid factory.


It's all about scoring huge margins while giving the customer something that has slightly better build quality than a Yugo. And what about luxury CARS - something that Cadillac was pretty good at in the 60's. Their "car" is now nothing more than a heated over pickup truck, and really, if I wanted a passenger pickup truck, I'd buy a classic Bronco at a quarter of the price. And it sounds an awful lot like the Cadillac Cimmaron experience, where one for half the price could buy the same vehicle as a Chevy Cavilier.



> The thing sucked more gas than I could ever fathom, and the wood grain was veneered on. It wasn't even real wood.


For real wood - you have to go back and get a Willys-Overland or something. As for gas, even when gas was cheap, we had a customer that rented a Ford Excursion, and returned it after two days because it was too expensive to drive from Upper Gage and Mohawk down to Dofasco and back. I couldn't imagine it say, last year, when gas was $1.40 a litre (in which my matrix could suck back $50-55 of gas on a fillup)...



> This is a $100,000 car. You could have a Maserati Quattroporte for 100K.


I'd rather have the Maserati just because they are so awesomely cool - though not quite as cool as an AM Lagonda. They did make a Chrysler-Maserati in the 80's, there is one in my neighbourhood, and it is pretty cool (and the only example of one I have seen in the wild)...


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Pontiac gone....seems a shame - would have thought it a valuable brand...a very anemic GM 



> *GM scraps 21,000 jobs, Pontiac*
> By TOM KRISHER, The Associated Press
> 
> DETROIT — General Motors Corp. said it will cut 21,000 U.S. factory jobs by next year, phase out its storied Pontiac brand and ask the government to take stock in exchange for half GM's government debt as part of a major restructuring effort that would leave *current shareholders holding just 1 per cent of the company.*


almost homeopathic version of the former world's largest corp.....

CTV.ca | CTV News, Shows and Sports - Canadian Television

Pretty thin gruel for stakeholders...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Considering GM's ineptitude, I think the shareholdes can count themselves lucky.


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

MacDoc said:


> Pontiac gone....seems a shame - would have thought it a valuable brand...a very anemic GM


Well, at least Pontiac can go out with its head held high: Review: 2010 Pontiac G8 GXP | The Truth About Cars


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

^^^
Or they can go out remembering such illustrious Pontiacs as the Astra, the Fiero, and the Aztek.

Next step for GM is the cliff - I think they are done like dinner since this "plan" has no actual content. It's just a way of getting rid of half their dealers, so they can shrink even smaller until they are done like Nash...


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

EvanPitts said:


> Next step for GM is the cliff...


Quite possibly. The restructuring may well be too little, too late. A couple of years ago they may well have had a good shot at restructuring (like Ford, with the "Way Forward"), but now the world wide car market has pretty much evaporated and even Toyota is burning ~$5B / year. It will be hard to restructure successfully in this environment.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Interesting retrospective on Pontiac
globeandmail.com: No tears in this Pontiac heaven


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

the whole market is changing dramatically-will it now be the big two in the US? Will Ford and Chrysler be able to get their sh*t together enough to compete with the Toyotas and Hyundais? How will the Koreans play in the emerging market?
I have no answers, but it is interesting to think about.


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## Chuck (Oct 17, 2003)

I agree. Make the GM execs honour their commitments.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Chuck said:


> I agree. Make the GM execs honour their commitments.


Which commitments?


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

EvanPitts said:


> Or they can go out remembering such illustrious Pontiacs as the Astra, the Fiero, and the Aztek.


Say what you want about the Fiero, they were fun to drive. There's a bunch of enthusiasts who are doing a great job keeping them on the road and the fibreglass bodies will never rust. I believe you're talking about the Astro van not Saturn Astra hatchback. The Astro has quite a following from people looking for a pimp ride. Aztek... agreed, ugliest car ever. But I do still see them around unfortunately.



PenguinBoy said:


> Well, at least Pontiac can go out with its head held high: Review: 2010 Pontiac G8 GXP | The Truth About Cars


The G8 GXP is a beautiful car, too bad the GXP version never made it to Canada... Full size sedan with a monstrously powerful engine and 6 speed manual transmission FTW.



mc3251 said:


> Will *GM* and Chrysler be able to get their sh*t together enough to compete with the Toyotas and Hyundais? How will the Koreans play in the emerging market?


Fixed that for you. Ford is doing just fine, they're making great cars and I'm excited about the Fiesta and Euro spec Focus coming to Canada finally, and then there's the hot Flex and the rebirth of the Taurus. It's GM and Chrysler that have to get their act together.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Yeah the ex Boeing head honcho has turned Ford in to a force to be reckoned with again. Boeing quality control and innovation.
It's showing up.
A number of well built and well thought out vehicles from the marque and the other two on the ropes...looking good for Ford.

Not sure where they are in the PHEV end but their baby hybrid SUV seems to do okay.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

Macfury said:


> Which commitments?


The Ten Commitments --

Honor thy CEO 

Thou shalt not steal from GM

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's Toyota ..........

You know, the Ten Commitments. They even made a movie about it years ago.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Sigh.....they bet the farm on it......

GM-Volt.com Chevy Volt Mule Test Drive w/ Video | GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site


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## The Doug (Jun 14, 2003)

dona83 said:


> Aztek... agreed, ugliest car ever. But I do still see them around unfortunately.


Saw the Aztek mentioned on one of the news websites (can't remember which) as a _truckvestite_. :lmao:


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

PenguinBoy said:


> Quite possibly. The restructuring may well be too little, too late. A couple of years ago they may well have had a good shot at restructuring (like Ford, with the "Way Forward"), but now the world wide car market has pretty much evaporated and even Toyota is burning ~$5B / year. It will be hard to restructure successfully in this environment.


Ford does have a much broader lineup of which to choose cars from, and unlike GM, Ford has long offered compact cars like the Escort and Focus.

GM spent too many years avoiding making such a vehicle - they either had stuff like the Chevette, which was nasty but cheap, or unknowns like the Geo Metro, or worse, the Asuna. And GM never did improve any of these vehicles, it was like they tossed them into the hat and hoped for something, because they weren't going to spend five more cents on them.

So they are left with just getting rid of things. Not only Pontiac, but the Saturn (which was designed to compete with the Japanese, but instead, cabbaged Chevy and Pontiac sales), the Holden in Australia, and they are trying to sell of Hummer (proof that they should have stuck to the Humvee style, rather than trying to rake in an extra 20 large on a boxy version of a GMC), SAAB (which used to be a nutters car bought but nutters, but was so vanilla'd into the conventional that the nutters went to stuff like the Honda Element), and Daewoo (Korean maker of small cars that shows that GM is just stupid because they could have just imported them rather than having people go Kia or Hyundai).

It's looking bad for GM because so many people who used to be GM buyers have gone elsewhere - and where they have gone to remains attractive. Until the competition starts dishing out the hard times to the consumers like GM long has, I don't think many are coming back.

Of course, GM's kultur is crazy. They do come up with some cool things, like the Chevy SSR - but then they spend 5 years parading them around and asking people if they'd buy one before they start selling them - and by then, everyone that wanted one went elsewhere for their fix. So maybe a Ford SVT Lightning isn't as cool looking - but it is available at a Ford dealership near you - something that GM never did learn. And it is not like they were warned because this stuff has went on for decades. Like my old neighbour who was a GM nut who waited far too long for Buick to vomit up the GNX - he ended up peeling his rubber in a crazy Ford SHO - and he's bought Ford's since, because he is a nutcase that needs 300HP in order to wear his tires out prematurely.

As for me, I liked my Buick - it was the Chevy and the infernal problems it had. And it was not just a lemon, you know, the bad one out of the bunch - but every time I went into the mechanic he knew exactly what was wrong because he had worked on a dozen that week with the same problem. After three years of that torture, and the prospect of needing a $1400 gas tank/fuel pump replacement on a car that was worth $500 - it was all about getting something that wasn't going to give me hard times. I've been entirely happy with my Toyotas - zero hard times, both have been champs. My mom is on her third Toyota, that after a series of GM products.

Nothing said "GM - Mark Of Excellence" quite like the dashboard that turned into dust in the Oldsmobile, with the crazy parts from any division that made it a mechanics nightmare.

Thinking about that, anything with "Excellence" in it is doomed to the worst failure - just like when they had "Centers Of Excellence" which was code for "We're going to cheapen the University research experience and dole it out to the lowest and most incapable bidder." Thus, we can say stuff like "Mayor Miller is Excellent"...


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

mc3251 said:


> the whole market is changing dramatically-will it now be the big two in the US? Will Ford and Chrysler be able to get their sh*t together enough to compete with the Toyotas and Hyundais? How will the Koreans play in the emerging market?
> I have no answers, but it is interesting to think about.


If history teaches us anything - it will teach us that those who are dumb will remain dumb, then will be overhauled by Huns or other barbarians.

Ford will survive, they are used to being trashed with their self-created disasters: like building the Model T for five years or more too long, or the Edsel, or all of their quality problems in the 70's.

So long as people want to buy craziest designed cars with the biggest possible engine, but don't care too much about quality, then Chrysler should make it through somehow, because not only did they survive their crisis to find victory in the K-Car, they somehow survived the K-Car.

But GM is such a huge kultur to deal with - just read the book On A Clear Day You Can See General Motors - which talks about GM in the 70's and that craziness, then push that whole kultur forward, but with more corruption and stupidity and lost opportunities. I can't see them survive, for as they shed off chunks of their corporation, they loose out to the competition, meaning they have to sell off even more chunks. No wonder why the Wall Street experts gave the General a rating of Junk Bond with the suggestion of that it is a good investment if you need to loose a chunk of cash fast for some kind of capital losses tax shelter.

Instead of chucking Pontiac - why didn't they just agree to make a Cadillac look like something someone with a chunk of cash would want to drive, rather than a cheap Chevy filled with nasty plastic and gee-gaws of all sorts, where the designer went nuts with the Grade 7 geometry set while stoned?


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

dona83 said:


> Say what you want about the Fiero, they were fun to drive. There's a bunch of enthusiasts who are doing a great job keeping them on the road and the fibreglass bodies will never rust.


And really fun the moment the engine caught fire - as the early models were prone to. Nothing is scarier than a fire erupting in front of out, except when it erupts behind the driver's seat! But not to dismiss the Fiero - I think it was another example of GM doing too little, too late. Early models were crud, and by the time they improved things and had people wanting to buy them, GM pulled the plug - the Fiero people had to go elsewhere for their fix, like the Toyota MR2.



> I believe you're talking about the Astro van not Saturn Astra hatchback.


Actually, I don't even know how it was spelled, but I intended to mention the Pontiac version of the rather flammable Vega - the car which proved that GM could never build a small, decent car. The Astro van is fine if you want something that looks like a van out of a cartoon, and don't mind some really nasty handling on even the smallest amount of ice. But then, my Buick would skid out in a Scotch mist...



> Aztek... agreed, ugliest car ever. But I do still see them around unfortunately.


Ugly - but again, GM was selling them and had the hard core lesbian market locked up, and there is nothing wrong with selling to the niches...



> Ford is doing just fine, they're making great cars and I'm excited about the Fiesta and Euro spec Focus coming to Canada finally, and then there's the hot Flex and the rebirth of the Taurus. It's GM and Chrysler that have to get their act together.


I entirely agree - Ford has stuff that people want, and a Euro spec Focus, so long as they can avoid the whole wheels flying off thing, will be popular. If I was in the market now, I'd consider a Ford, just like when I was looking a few years ago. I was so close to buying a Focus, but the whole wheels flying off thing made me think that a Corolla would be a better car overall, mostly because I've never heard of Corolla's loosing their wheels.


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

EvanPitts said:


> Ugly - but again, GM was selling them and had the hard core lesbian market locked up, and there is nothing wrong with selling to the niches...


Kewl... beejacon


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

mc3251 said:


> the whole market is changing dramatically-will it now be the big two in the US? Will Ford and Chrysler be able to get their sh*t together enough to compete with the Toyotas and Hyundais? How will the Koreans play in the emerging market?
> I have no answers, but it is interesting to think about.


Here's what my crystal ball says at the moment, although it is a bit cloudy...

The marques most likely to come out ahead after things stabilize a bit:
-Honda
-Toyota
-Ford

A number of weaker brands will not survive. In addition to some of the GM and Mopar brands, I wouldn't be surprised to see some of the following pull out of North America - although in some cases they may keep selling in their home markets:
-Kia
-Suzuki
-Mitsubishi

VW has big plans for expansion, it would be interesting to see what happens if these plans fall flat. They have some nice cars, and are huge in Europe, but I can't see them growing market share much more in North America.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Pretty good predictions there, Penguin... I think you're right about the secondary tier of Japanese automakers perhaps being forced to retreat to much more welcoming home markets; here, they just don't have the tech it takes to give them an edge over Toyota and Honda. I drive a Suzuki vehicle and I'm very happy with its quality of assembly and its general level of performance but I sense the company is simply not going to win any awards for class-leading innovation.


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

I've been hearing from a few Mazda dealerships that they've been enjoying sales the past few months even before their current wave of incentives.


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

EvanPitts said:


> ...there is nothing wrong with selling to the niches...


Agreed - as long as the niche vehicles stay tightly focused, and don't get too watered down.

Here's and interesting article on how this applies to GM: Editorial: General Motors Death Watch 247: Brandicide Won’t Save GM | The Truth About Cars

I'm also a bit worried about the "Toyotafication" of Subaru.

I currently have a Legacy Wagon, and would like to replace it with another one in a couple of years. I like it because it has AWD, it is a wagon and not an SUV or CUV, and it has a manual transmission. This is arguably a niche vehicle as the number of buyers who want a car with these attributes is small - North Americans don't like wagons or manual gearboxes, and don't seem want AWD on cars (as opposed to SUV/CUVs).

I haven't seen the new Legacy yet, but it sounds like they will raise it a few inches and make it more "CUV" like, make it bigger and bulkier which will give it more rear seat room, etc. While these changes will no doubt make the car more appealing to the broader market, they will reduce the appeal to me. Right now, if you want an AWD wagon with a manual transmission there are only 2 or 3 to choose from, so Subaru is almost certain to be on your list. On the other hand, if you want a mid sized CUV there are many to choose from so you might not even stop to consider a smaller automaker like Subaru.

If you are selling to a niche, it makes sense to stay tightly focused and aim for a big slice of a small pie...


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## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

EvanPitts said:


> I entirely agree - Ford has stuff that people want, and a Euro spec Focus, so long as they can avoid the whole wheels flying off thing, will be popular. If I was in the market now, I'd consider a Ford, just like when I was looking a few years ago. I was so close to buying a Focus, but the whole wheels flying off thing made me think that a Corolla would be a better car overall, mostly because I've never heard of Corolla's loosing their wheels.


Actually if you're thinking about buying a Focus anything after the '03 model year is a pretty safe bet as the wheel recall only affected the 2000 to 2002 model year and the Focus is allot more fun to drive than a Corolla any day especially the SVT or the 2.3L sport edition.

Laterz


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## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

PenguinBoy said:


> A number of weaker brands will not survive. In addition to some of the GM and Mopar brands, I wouldn't be surprised to see some of the following pull out of North America - although in some cases they may keep selling in their home markets:
> -Kia
> -Suzuki
> -Mitsubishi


Sorry there is no way that Kia will disappear from North America they are owned by Hyundai and right now Hyundai is the #7 auto manufacturer and right now Hyundai is trying to push it's cars a bit upmarket and leaving Kia where they are. Also note that Hyundai and Kia are the only manufacturers that have managed to post positive sales for the last 6 months.

Laterz


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

K_OS said:


> Actually if you're thinking about buying a Focus anything after the '03 model year is a pretty safe bet as the wheel recall only affected the 2000 to 2002 model year and the Focus is allot more fun to drive than a Corolla any day especially the SVT or the 2.3L sport edition.
> 
> Laterz


I picked up a used SVT focus as a fun to drive commuter, and I'm still happy with it three years later.

This was the first domestic car I had purchased for my own use since 1983 - although I did have a couple that followed me home in the '90s when I got married and which gave surprisingly good service.

We replaced my Mom's Corolla with a lightly used (17,000 km, as new condition) focus wagon around the same time. The only work needed by this car to date has been replacement of tires this year and replacement of a side mirror my dad ripped off when backing out of the garage.

I think these things are great value used, as the taint of a domestic badge keeps prices low - yet they seem to be decent cars.

The only complaint I have is the Hatches, Wagons, and SVT are gone now - but bringing the Euro focus over as rumoured would be a good way to address this problem.


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

K_OS said:


> Sorry there is no way that Kia will disappear from North America they are owned by Hyundai and right now Hyundai is the #7 auto manufacturer and right now Hyundai is trying to push it's cars a bit upmarket and leaving Kia where they are. Also note that Hyundai and Kia are the only manufacturers that have managed to post positive sales for the last 6 months.
> 
> Laterz


Agreed that Hyundai has made great strides of late - but there's too much overlap between Kia and Hyundai and they don't need multiple brands with little to differentiate them any more than anyone else does.

I don't think the cost of maintaining separate product line ups for both Kia and Hyundai is justified, and I don't see Hyundai moving all their product line up market right away.

I think a more likely scenario would be for Hyundai to gas Kia, and promote the Genesis as a more upmarket "sub brand". Although by all accounts the Genesis is a fine car for it's target audience, this move up market may or may not be successful. Consider the example of the VW Phaeton - right car, wrong badge. A move upmarket is even more risky during a nasty recession.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Hyundia buying the Pontiac brand..interesting mix..

I'm a little surprised Hyundai has not considered hooking up with GM.....


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

MacDoc said:


> Hyundia buying the Pontiac brand..interesting mix..
> 
> I'm a little surprised Hyundai has not considered hooking up with GM.....


Interesting. This raises the question of who picks the bones once GM is completely done. There are lots of assets worth having, one would think, for someone who knows how to build quality vehicles and listen to their market.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Reminds me of the time when the Asians were picking up the North American appliance names like Whirlpool etc.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

MacDoc said:


> I'm a little surprised Hyundai has not considered hooking up with GM.....


I think that should have happened prior to GM's rechristening as Government Motors. I don't think companies in decent shape want to mess with government at this level.


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

MacDoc said:


> Hyundia buying the Pontiac brand..interesting mix..
> 
> I'm a little surprised Hyundai has not considered hooking up with GM.....


If you "hook up" with GM you'll also be "hooking up" with the UAW/CAW...it ain't gonna happen. Once GM or Chrysler do go bankrupt, I'd imagine there will be a run on some of the assets, but the UAW/CAW labour pool won't be one of them.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Well that's what I'm thinking with "hookup" - post bankruptcy. I wonder how the US will view a "state owned" entity like Hyundai tho despite close ties with S Korea.

That said GM is close to being Obama Motors anyways...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

MacDoc said:


> That said GM is close to being Obama Motors anyways...


It is...but that was the desired outcome onthe part of the Administration anyway.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

K_OS said:


> Actually if you're thinking about buying a Focus anything after the '03 model year is a pretty safe bet as the wheel recall only affected the 2000 to 2002 model year and the Focus is allot more fun to drive than a Corolla any day especially the SVT or the 2.3L sport edition.


I bought the Corolla in 2001, right in the middle of the Focus problems. A guy I worked with wrecked his Focus when the wheel came off on the Interstate, on his way back from Virginia. Of course, the Corolla was not sporty, but was pretty good on gas and was fun to drive - so it was a good car for me. I traded it in because it needed new brake pads, that after six years of trouble free driving, well, except where a kid decided that he was "late for school" and inserted his truck into my back door.

I ended up buying a Matrix, which has been an excellent car. The extra payload space really works out as well, which has saved me a few times from having to trek home from Ikea to get the truck when the girlfriend decided to buy stuff. However, I consider Ford when I was looking - something I can't say about GM or Chrysler, both of which I entirely ignored. After owning a Chevy, I don't think I'll ever bother with a GM again, they are just too costly to keep on the road.


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

The Euro spec Focus is similar to the Mazda 3 just like the Fusion is to the Mazda 6. It will be a great car.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

MacDoc said:


> Hyundia buying the Pontiac brand..interesting mix..
> 
> I'm a little surprised Hyundai has not considered hooking up with GM.....


I'm not - Hyundai doesn't want to ruin their quality by marketing GM rejects. Hyundai is just too huge of a corporation to bother because really, any company that can make supertankers and giant container ships on an assembly line (and pretty much own the ship building industry these days) doesn't need to buy GM to learn how to do things wrong or stupidly.

The stuff GM is up to is nothing more than giving up, surrendering by other means. They are going to throw in too little, too late, and hope for pity from the consumers they spent years abusing. Getting rid of Pontiac isn't going to fix anything - only when they realize that their whole process is utterly obsolete will they have a glimmer of a hope.

I think many things have been pointed out, that this is not a new malaise for GM, but it has been going on for years. Dependence on needing to built 500,000 vehicles in order to turn any profit is not a good thing. People don't want the exact same car as everyone else on the road, and if GM can't be turning profits at the 50,000 mark, they can not compete with any of the foreign makes. And if GM persists in spending 5 to 10 years dithering about whether they should bring out a vehicle or not, they can not compete against foreign makes that can design and build a complete model inside of 2 years, nor can they compete with Ford that is more than willing to bolt on some of the craziest options with their SVT scheme.

It'a all about what people want - and GM can only succeed if the majority of the public wants: bad handling cars with inefficient, retrograde engines; a myriad of defects and recalls to deal with; dealerships filled with con-men and incompetent service departments that rip off customers on routine service; warranties with so many outs that it doesn't actually cover anything; cheap radios that are barely a step up from kiddie-project crystal diode sets; paint that shales off in big sheets or just turns into some kind of wierd faded matte colour after two years; cheap interiors with the nastiest forms of biodegradable plastics; and so on.

GM and their Mark Of Excellence has failed - because their version of Excellence is really just two steps up from a Yugo, but at greater cost. And they should have known this was coming because they had to sucker people in with their 0% financing or huge cash back programs - the only thing that pushed cars off the lot was to sell them virtually at cost, and even then, the Japanese overhauled them.

As for some of the interesting cars and trucks - too bad, if GM had actually made them available, they would have sold - but no one wants them ten years after the fact. And the Volt, if you read the fine print on their TV ads, it's looking to be a lot like a vapourmobile. Oh, maybe they will make a thousand of them, then all of a sudden go out and take them from the owners and crush them, just like the EV1. The only way GM can be saved is to start making '55 Chevies and '64 Impalas once again - they'd sell like a million of them - just think of the low-rider crowd in California. They'd sell a half million El Caminos in the South West as well...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

EvanPitts said:


> The only way GM can be saved is to start making '55 Chevies and '64 Impalas once again - they'd sell like a million of them - just think of the low-rider crowd in California. They'd sell a half million El Caminos in the South West as well...


I'd be standing in line for any of those!


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

dona83 said:


> The Euro spec Focus is similar to the Mazda 3 just like the Fusion is to the Mazda 6. It will be a great car.


As long as Ford can keep their own bean counters away from it, because no one will buy yet another thrifted Ford, well, if people learned their lessons from previous projects where Ford thrifted their products.

Thinking about thrifting - my dad's old Ford F-150 actually came with passenger grade tires, which though they fit the wheels, were totally inappropriate and very probably very unsafe on a truck that regularly carried heavy loads. When he replaced the tires with proper ones designed for I-Beam suspensions, the ride was so much better, and the truck didn't wallow all over the road when you had a tool box in the back. That was some nasty thrifting, like what did Ford expect to save, $10 per unit? When it comes to vehicles, a bad reputation is expensive to fix...


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

MacDoc said:


> That said GM is close to being Obama Motors anyways...


We've seen this movie before, it's another remake of a UK show.

The biggest difference I can see between "American Leyland" and the original is the fact that the Union owns a block of the corporation, and is dependent on its survival. I think "Red Robbo" thought that the government was a infinite source of cash back in the day, while it appears that the Union will need to see a turnaround at GM in order to survive themselves. This ~might~ lead to a different ending for the US version of the show...


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

reportonbusiness.com: GM bankruptcy likely, CAW says


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I've heard that the CAW would likely sell their shares in either GM or Chrysler as quickly as practical to shore up the legacy benefits fund.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

^^^
Those shares may not be worth much - perhaps toilet paper for the Union Halls, after GM lost yet another $6 Billion in the last quarter. Imagine how much they would have lost if their plants were still running?


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

^^^
EP: The thought is that the union understands this--and that the quicker they sell off the shares the better off they will be. Unfortunately you're right about the best strategy for GM. They'll save $1,500 minimum for every car they refuse to produce. Full production would be a death knell.

I'm still astounded that all of this talk about lending money to a company that willingly bankrupted itself is tolerated. Going into hock with your suppliers in the full knowledge that you're headed over a cliff is unconscionable.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

^^^
Wall Street Lemmings. But it's not the first time, just look at that German bank that ended up needing to be "nationalized" because they loaned billions of dollars to Lehman Brothers on the day they were filing for bankruptcy. People invested in Enron long after that smelled like a Sunkist tuna cannery in the 80's...

If they are going to bail out GM and Chrysler - how come they didn't bail out AMC, Nash, Hudson, Studebaker, Packard, Peerless, Franklin, etc. Smells like a case of racism to me - automotive racism. Fair is fair, and really, I think it would be cool to have a Stutz Bearcat... beejacon


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

EvanPitts said:


> ...really, I think it would be cool to have a Stutz Bearcat... beejacon


They gotta bring that old Rod Taylor show out of mothballs.


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

*GM Running out of Cash*



> DETROIT — General Motors disclosed on Thursday that it was running through its cash reserves faster than ever as it barrels toward a June 1 deadline to cut debt and expenses or file for bankruptcy protection.
> 
> Add to Portfolio
> General Motors Corp
> ...


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/business/08auto.html?_r=1&hp

They need to die. Let the other car companies pick them apart. This is a disorganised money pit.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Anyone doing extremely simple math could see that GM was going to burn through that cash in record time unless they had a massive upswing in demand.


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## Cliffy (Apr 18, 2005)

So much for everyone wanting a gas sipping econobox, despite what they say on blogs and radio call in shows.

Oshawa working overtime 



> ..._being asked to work additional shifts to meet "huge" demand for the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro_...


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

It's not like the current price of gas isn't a significant factor.


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

Max said:


> It's not like the current price of gas isn't a significant factor.


I would argue that the price of fuel isn't a significant cost for most new car buyers - depreciation and financing (or opportunity cost, for cash buyers) are typically much larger in the first few years of ownership.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

PenguinBoy said:


> I would argue that the price of fuel isn't a significant cost for most new car buyers - depreciation and financing (or opportunity cost, for cash buyers) are typically much larger in the first few years of ownership.


True enough, but I would argue in turn that, where it concerns financial matters, a great many people still like to think short-term rather than long - and cheap gas is an awfully tempting short-term trigger.


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

So now our tax dollars will be going to bail out GM, which may or may not be a good idea, and may or may not be successful - but at least it's easy to understand the motivation: Canadian Taxpayer money for Canadian Jobs.

It gets even more weird overseas - Nissan is seeking money from the Japanese government, and their plan is to move production *OUT* of Japan: Nissan to Slash Payroll, Pare Japanese Output - WSJ.com. Apparently it's too expensive to build cars in Japan due to the high, yen. The strength of the yen makes no sense, looking at articles like this: Cash in on the worlds biggest bankruptcy - MoneyWeek, you would think that the yen should be low and it would be awfully cheap to build cars with a VIN starting in J...


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

Max said:


> True enough, but I would argue in turn that, where it concerns financial matters, a great many people still like to think short-term rather than long - and cheap gas is an awfully tempting short-term trigger.


Many do - like all those folks who took a haircut to trade their gas guzzlers for econoboxes last year...


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

I'll buy a used 6.2L with manual transmission in 5 years for cheap. *drool*


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

> Many do - like all those folks who took a haircut to trade their gas guzzlers for econoboxes last year...


and they will be proved correct in their actions in not a very distant time and in the meantime save money cumulatively.

The SUVs nosedived - the market is glutted - doing it early a good idea in the long run.

It was getting close to being a no brainer for a commuter when oil hit $1.40 a litre. It will be again.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

MacDoc said:


> and they will be proved correct in their actions in not a very distant time and in the meantime save money cumulatively.
> 
> The SUVs nosedived - the market is glutted - doing it early a good idea in the long run.
> 
> It was getting close to being a no brainer for a commuter when oil hit $1.40 a litre. It will be again.


Not everyone wants to drive a sh!tbox because they're peeing their pants over carbon, MacDoc. That's just your personal taste.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

True, dat... nor does everyone need a large car or truck to compensate for inadequacies in other areas.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Or maybe they prefer to reduce their use of the atmosphere as a free sewer - an odious action you MF champion continuously- they don't pee on their neighbour's lawns either to extend your pungent analogy. 

Your nonsense stance is dead MF, deal with it instead of sulking like a 6 year old with a scatological penchant. 
You could move to Somalia for a dose of libbie Nirvana...

Maybe people are doing it just to save money.....and reduce carbon....sounds like a winning combo.....y'know good stewardship AND common sense.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Some of the GM deals are very tempting - there was a new car ( can't recall the model - the Wave maybe) - not likely made by GM, $8,997 with a bunch of other sweeteners thrown in under the Pontiac brand.



> The Pontiac All In One Event includes:
> 
> 3 years (or more) no charge Goodwrench Service maintenance∞
> 2 years of safety and security with OnStar® Directions and Connections Plan♠
> ...


Pretty cheap cost of ownership

I was in a waiting room and overheard a couple discussing the GM "deals" favourably. Anyone thinking about taking the plunge?


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

MacDoc said:


> Pretty cheap cost of ownership


Possibly - although residual value will likely be atrocious. It would be interesting to see how something like a Honda Fit compares with the Wave on ownership costs. The Fit would cost quite a bit more up front, and be worth quite a bit more down the road. Money's cheap right now, so the difference in up front cost might not be a big deal if you get it back down the road.

Haven't done the math, but something that needs to be considered for people considering a purchase.


dona83 said:


> I'll buy a used 6.2L with manual transmission in 5 years for cheap. *drool*


Agreed - the real deals will be on orphaned cars in 2 or 3 years, like this one: Review: 2009 Pontiac G8 GXP | The Truth About Cars

Might not make an ideal daily driver with the environmental impact and running costs - but what a great second or third car! Get BMW M5 performance while slipping by unnoticed in an old Pontiac.

Since you have to go to the US to find a GXP with manual you could find one that's never seen road salt or Winter.


MacDoc said:


> Anyone thinking about taking the plunge?


No.


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

Things are tight all over.

The "New GM" is loosing money even faster than GM now:
reportonbusiness.com: Toyota reports its worst ever results

Of course they haven't burned their cash yet, so they are in much better shape to weather the storm...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

MacDoc said:


> Or maybe they prefer to reduce their use of the atmosphere as a free sewer - an odious action you MF champion continuously- they don't pee on their neighbour's lawns either to extend your pungent analogy.


...and some just choose to live in the outskirts of Mississauga where driving is de rigueur. Or fly to South Africa so they can see the sights.

To each his own.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

MacDoc said:


> Some of the GM deals are very tempting - there was a new car ( can't recall the model - the Wave maybe) - not likely made by GM, $8,997 with a bunch of other sweeteners thrown in under the Pontiac brand.
> 
> Pretty cheap cost of ownership
> 
> I was in a waiting room and overheard a couple discussing the GM "deals" favourably. Anyone thinking about taking the plunge?


Not on your life. You have to consider the other "costs", like the cost of renting a car while the vehicle is in the shop for all of the "repairs", the cost of the repairs that will be attributed to "poor driving habits" rather than shoddy materials and workmanship, and the cost of removing XM to put in something decent, like Sirius. Of course, some things are not deal killers - like OnStar, which is just useless but at least it isn't the Evil Empire Sync garbage that Ford peddles.

Then there is the long term. So maybe one would spend double that on a Civic, but one will also get at least 10 years out of a Civic with no problem, while the Pontiac will just be a ghastly mess, coated in rust after the paint has all flown off in giant chunks, with most components being replaced by new components, and that is if it is still actually drivable after 10 years.

The ads will sucker some people - but that crowd has long disappeared, since it is obvious that most GM owners have long since fled to much better vehicles, vehicles that are better in all respects.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

PenguinBoy said:


> Of course they haven't burned their cash yet, so they are in much better shape to weather the storm...


As we speak, they are constructing the Cash Incinerator in Detroit right now. Records are meant to be broken, and GM should be able to top a loss of $6 Billion in the current quarter.

We shouldn't have "bailed" them out - it's time for Capitalism to cull out the Corporations that can not compete, and get in the Corporations that can. We need to get some real auto manufacturing here, like VW, and build something cool, something people may want to buy.

As for the suppliers - it would certainly be better for them to make a decent amount of money on high quality parts - rather than making a dime on the inferior parts the Big 3 bean counters insist on.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Macfury said:


> ...and some just choose to live in the outskirts of Mississauga where driving is de rigueur. Or fly to South Africa so they can see the sights.


Mississauga is one of the biggest dumps around - a City Hall in the middle of a mall parking lot, and driving - not de rigeur but an absolute necessity. Not only is it a five mile walk to the nearest store; sure, you can see the store, but the streets all curl around in odd directions so it is a ten minute drive to get out of a survey; but being a pedestrian is deadly. I couldn't imagine trying to cross some of those roads, like Burnhamthorpe - I think it would be safer to peddle Bibles in Kabul, or to be a travelling musician and visit the Taliban.

If I could, I would reduce my driving, if only to save cash. But since there are no jobs around here, commuting is the only way of scoring cash. Until we solve the whole urban engineering problem, there is nothing we can do about cars or pollution - because without fixing the base system, we can't fix the symptoms.

Just like GM - until they start making fuel efficient cars that have quality comparable to the Japanese - they can't be "saved".


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

Evan, you are effing hilarious. You need a talk show. You articulate what is wrong with just about everything so crudely, yet eloquently realistic.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Thank you - but my talk show would suck large. I'd get bored of chopping up the politicians, especially the species they have in Hamilton, since they have de-evolved from the ones you may be familiar with in other locales. I wouldn't be able to get any ad sponsorship because I'd chop up their bad ads. Perhaps I could have a show based on the college course I just finished, but no one would believe how bad it was, or how psycho the crazy woman in the class actually was - though it might fit into the Art Bell kind of time slot.

It's all about hardball - and not the candy-a$$ed kind of Hardball Chris Matthews dishes out, or that liberal wuss Rush Limbaugh...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

EvanPitts said:


> As for the suppliers - it would certainly be better for them to make a decent amount of money on high quality parts - rather than making a dime on the inferior parts the Big 3 bean counters insist on.


I think if someone put a high quality part in one of those cars, it would create structural damage to the feeble parts surrounding it. New wine in old wineskins and all.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

"It's all about hardball - and not the candy-a$$ed kind of Hardball Chris Matthews dishes out, or that liberal wuss Rush Limbaugh... " 

Yes, folks, Life is a bowl of cherries ................ all pits here at CMAC, you local all-talk radio station here in ehMacLand ................................ So, be sure to tune in tomorrow when EP, that Wit of the Air Waves, the man that will cut any and all down to size with his cutting sarcasm ................. George S may have "The Hour", but we have EP and "The Power".


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## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

EvanPitts said:


> As for the suppliers - it would certainly be better for them to make a decent amount of money on high quality parts - rather than making a dime on the inferior parts the Big 3 bean counters insist on.


Here you go again spewing out misinformation, how many of those part suppliers also supply Honda, Toyota, Hyundai? and why is Toyota so worried about there part suppliers going out of business due to a GM bankruptcy that Toyota for the 1st time in it's history is stockpiling parts?

Laterz


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

K_OS said:


> Here you go again spewing out misinformation, how many of those part suppliers also supply Honda, Toyota, Hyundai?


You've never worked at one of these parts suppliers, have you? At one place in town, they make die cast parts for Honda and Ford. The parts are very similar, different shape and that, but the same process and same function. The difference is in manufacturing.

All of the newbies and people that show up to work stoned and/or drunk get to work with the Ford parts. "Quality" consists of checking the first five parts (made by the tool setter), followed by a check of the first part, one part in the middle of the shift, and one part at the end of the shift. If those parts are within tolerance - the whole batch is a "Pass". So if a tool breaks off inside a part, well, as long as it isn't one of those "quality" parts, the whole batch passes. Parts on this line are made to the tune of 72 units per hour, so a broken bit making a malformed hole could lead to a few hundred defective parts. Rarely does a Ford engineer ever visit the plant, and is an unusual circumstance normally connected with some kind of recall situation.

On the other side, in a very similar process, standards are more stringent. All workers have to be approved by Honda, and Honda quality engineers are in the plant on a regular basis. Quality consists of Go-No Go checks on each part produced, with random quality checks performed by Honda people. Tool setters make the first five parts any time a tool is changed out or breaks. A defective part detected in later random samples results in the rejection of the entire order. Parts on this line are made to the tune of about 40-50 units per hour, and the line is slowed or stopped if there is an unresolved problem.

A friend of mine worked at a place that made "identical" blower motors for the automakers. And sure, the motors are pretty much the same. However, Quality is a lot different. If they are making blowers for Chrysler, they are given 45 seconds to do their job, so at his station, barely enough time to test the balance of the blower once. They test two random units every half hour to give the batch a "pass" or "fail".

If they are making similar blowers for a Japanese make - they have double the time, a minute and a half per blower. They have a test station that does a Go-No Go test on all motors, and do a full Quality inspection on a random unit every five minutes

So there are very real differences - and it comes down to what they companies will pay for parts. The Big Three want the cheapest possible parts so they can make the fattest profits, and accept the risks of warranty repairs later because that's another department within the corporation. The Japanese, on the other hand, look to make a total product and figure their profit will be made by clobbering the competition. And that they do.

We even see this in the electronics industry - which because of shoddy but overpriced goods made here, pretty much handed the entire market over to the Japanese. It didn't take long to figure that buying a Sony TV was a much better deal because it would be a workhorse, and didn't need garbage like the RCA "Works In A Drawer", in which the customer would remove the burned out parts so they didn't have to pay for a repairman to visit the house.

These things are clear, and the heap of anecdotal stories as well as the profit-loss statements show the real story of how North America has not been able to compete because of short sighted goals of fast profit, an acceptance that customers will put up with defective parts that need constant replacement, and that somehow if a company is in "trouble", they can rename something or bring out new uniforms in order to "fix things up".

I wish it was different - but after the years of seeing bad decisions made by companies that just had some urge to frag themselves, I no longer believe that the majority of corporations in North America will be able to survive in the long term unless they beging to think differently.


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## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

I have never worked in a manufacturing environment but I have had friends who have worked for parts manufacturers the only thing that I took from knowing where they work is that they got paid way to much for the job they were doing due to there union's. All I know is that the parts they made for domestic and foreign manufacturers were the same and yes Ford, GM, and Chrysler engineers were there almost as often as Honda and the Toyota engineers.

Laterz


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

K_OS said:


> I have never worked in a manufacturing environment but I have had friends who have worked for parts manufacturers the only thing that I took from knowing where they work is that they got paid way to much for the job they were doing due to there union's. All I know is that the parts they made for domestic and foreign manufacturers were the same and yes Ford, GM, and Chrysler engineers were there almost as often as Honda and the Toyota engineers.
> 
> Laterz


I've been to Hi-Lex and Valeo-Sylvania factories through Canada, US and Mexico and I can say that parts for Japanese and German automakers are of a much higher quality than those for the American ones. It was interesting to see the two lines next to each other; one was for Chrysler and another for VW. The VW line was moving much slower than the Chrysler line, even though they were both the same machine with the same number of people.

That is just my experience and certainly does not represent a broader production process. But there is something to say for American car's poor quality.


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

Adrian. said:


> But there is something to say for American car's poor quality.


How do you explain VWs abysmal reliability then? They are certainly nice cars - solidly built, with beautiful interiors - but are often at or near the bottom of any reliability study.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

PenguinBoy said:


> How do you explain VWs abysmal reliability then? They are certainly nice cars - solidly built, with beautiful interiors - but are often at or near the bottom of any reliability study.


And I have noticed that when I read the LemonAid books that often the consumer satisfaction and reliability numbers don't necessarily track to high cost European cars (Mercedes for example is no great shakes). The Japanese tend to do well though.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

PenguinBoy said:


> How do you explain VWs abysmal reliability then? They are certainly nice cars - solidly built, with beautiful interiors - but are often at or near the bottom of any reliability study.


With all of the crazy gadgets the Germans cram into a VW - it's only because there are like double the parts to potentially fail. Ever notice the hand grips on the ceiling that have the spring loaded device so they don't "thwap" back? Or their crazy complex engines where everything is routed by some kind of over-engineered actuator.

Relibaility doesn't always translate to what customers want. People will shell out large money for Jaguars, even though they are mechanical wretches that will be in the shop more often than not. But they don't suffer from a bad reputation - mostly because they don't blow up on the highway because some corporate bean counter decided upon a 50 cent savings on a head gasket.

VW's are the same - more problems, but far cooler cars. Nothing in North America can beat the coolness of a Corrado, even though it is hard to find a mechanic that is up to the task of keeping a Corrado on the road. People buy a VW not because of reliability - but because they are cool. And that is something the Big Three have clearly forgotten about, since they miss out on both reliability and coolness. They just simply do not make a cool car over here - and the few that might attain cool are built in far too few numbers, are far too late for the market, and are far too expensive. And some cars that might have attained cool status were saddled with crud under the hood - like the PT Cruiser, which looks cool, but who wants to shell out large for what amounts to be a Neon?

Now, if the PT Cruiser had a VW powerplant under the hood - that would be a different story. Same if Ford would bring over the Europrean Focus - I would have bought one in a second. Or if GM had actually brought out a Buick GNX with the Stage 4 engine - I would have bought one. But for people that want Cool - they have to go elsewhere for their fix.


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

EvanPitts said:


> With all of the crazy gadgets the Germans cram into a VW - it's only because there are like double the parts to potentially fail.


That argument doesn't hold water - plenty of complex cars are reliable, such as Lexus for example. Also, a lot of the parts that fail on VWs are basic assemblies - not gadgets. For example, window regulators, water pumps, MAF sensors, etc.

I do agree that "cool factor" is a much better reason to buy a car than reliability in many cases. That said, cool is in they eye of the beholder and some would consider a Cadillac CTS-V or Challenger SRT-8 "cool".

I would suggest that the problem with Detroit is not that they can't build "cool" cars, but rather that they can't build high volume mainstream transportation appliances to compete with the Camry et. al. Toyota became the biggest automaker in the world not by building "cool" cars that appealed to pistonheads, but by building the bland but flawless transportation appliances that were often the best choice for mainstream buyers that need transportation but aren't particularly interested in cars - and there are plenty of those folks to sell to.

Mind you, there is some evidence that times are starting to change at Toyota too: Hammer Time: Toyota: A (Cross Out Smart) Safe Choice | The Truth About Cars


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

I don't think there is any question that a lot of people want reliable first-get me where I want to go and don't for heaven's sake break down or cost me a fortune in repairs.

Evan's point about overengineering is true though. Radio buttons with ball bearings in them, etc etc-I don't know if that's what fails but it seems to me that more parts increases the likelihood.

People love cool-but not empty cool. Macs are cool, but people wouldn't keep buying them if they weren't incredibly well built computers.

At some point the US automakers got the rep of building sh*t cars, and that has proven very hard to shake, even when (as in the case of Ford) there have been dramatic quality improvements.


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## bsenka (Jan 27, 2009)

PenguinBoy said:


> How do you explain VWs abysmal reliability then? They are certainly nice cars - solidly built, with beautiful interiors - but are often at or near the bottom of any reliability study.


Most of those "studies" are heavily biased towards Japanese cars. They are mostly either opinion, or just re-quoting Consumer Reports (not a reliable source of info on anything).

While it's true that VWs are somewhat prone to the occasional electrical gremlin, they are nowhere near as prevalent as guys like Edmunds will have you believe, and they are a small price to pay for rock-solid mechanical reliability that no manufacturer can compare to, and for the intangible driving experience.

I've owned 5 VWs now, and every one of them was significantly better built than the 4 Hondas and 5 Toyotas that we had before that. The Toyotas were by far the worst for things breaking. My current 2007 Jetta is without question the best built car I've ever owned.

Remember, there was a time not long ago, that Macs were reviled in the mainstream press. Just about every computer magazine out there claimed knowledge of how they can't do this or are missing that, or were too slow, all of which was poppy-cock.


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## Radio Flyer (Feb 11, 2007)

bsenka said:


> Consumer Reports (not a reliable source of info on anything.


If that's the case then it follows the reports on the Apple Macintosh in CU reports are also poppy-cock?


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## bsenka (Jan 27, 2009)

Radio Flyer said:


> If that's the case then it follows the reports on the Apple Macintosh in CU reports are also poppy-cock?


They love Macs now, they did nothing but slag them as underpowered, underfeatured, unreliable, and unable to perform basic tasks for years. Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're out to lunch. It's a crap shoot.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

bsenka said:


> They love Macs now, they did nothing but slag them as underpowered, underfeatured, unreliable, and unable to perform basic tasks for years. Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're out to lunch. It's a crap shoot.


Well....hang on. You say in an earlier post that consumer reports aren't reliable source on anything-and now you want to agree with them when they praise Macs. Can't have it both ways.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

I prefer Car and Driver
2009 Car Reviews on CARandDRIVER.com ? Read Car Buying Tips and Browse Car Ratings

and JD Powers for assessment 
2009 Vehicle Dependability Study (VDS) | J.D. Power and Associates

- Consumers is pretty marginal on all counts for all products AFAIK and Edmunds perhaps not clinical enough tho of interest.


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

I've never owned a VW. I've owned an Audi, which is sort of a VW. Nonetheless, I've seen many VWs with more than 500,000 KMs on them and they still run nicely. They tend to be diesels. 

The other thing to consider with VWs is that they make a lot of diesels and have for a long time. Toyota or Honda offer no diesels AFAIK. Perhaps someone more mechanically inclined than enlighten this, but as far as I know, diesels break less often but when they do it is quite expensive to fix them.

Simply a variable.


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

Adrian. said:


> I've seen many VWs with more than 500,000 KMs on them and they still run nicely.


Durability != Reliability. Many cars will last a long time, but have a few niggling problems along the way. There are others that might not last as long, but which will have less problems as long as they last.

Many domestic cars will run for upwards of 500,000 km too - large sedans mostly from what I've seen. Next time you're in a taxicab look at the odometer...


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## Radio Flyer (Feb 11, 2007)

Arian said:


> Toyota or Honda offer no diesels


Wrong!

Toyota and other Japanese manufacturers don't offer small diesels in North America because we are focussed only on BIG gas engines. They all offer small diesels in other places, Europe, Australia, Africa, etc.

MacDoc ... I've been suspicious that C&D can be influenced by advertising dollars. CU does some testing but the ratings are provided by subscribers who fill out survey. The problem I have with the surveys is the respondents tend to give higher ratings to some products because ego sways their opinion. People will colour their responses to suggest they made a good decision to buy and own the product. Others are so fed up with the problems and repairs they will provided bad reviews to punish the manufacturer. So if frequency of repair and an indication the owner would buy the vehicle again is important CU does provide a good starting point to evaluate vehicles.


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

Car & Driver will equally talk smack about every vehicle, making them a good unbiased source. 

I like Canadian Driver, they're a good bunch.

I've heard that taxis love hybrids, not just because of fuel savings but maintenance savings as well. They talked about one of their original Priuses that still have 700,000km on the original battery which still works, and regenerative braking means less wear and tear on the friction braking systems.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

That's always an issue in all industries but C&D at least have some in depth hands on in the real world with the actual vehicles.

I don't buy into any one source - I must admit over decades Honda motorcycles seem a cut above any one other mcycle from personal experience so I can see why their vehicles rank high.
Damn things just work.

I do think some of the Japanese are just ahead of the curve in a variety of areas of design, engineering and flexible manufacturing for meeting niche markets.

Ford has imported a culture from Boeing that is showing results. Better vision, better management, better results and it's showing up.

GM and Chrysler have deep fundamental issues that need a culture change or they disappear - not all of their own devising.
They have legacy burdens.

That said Toyota is hurting big time too.


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

Radio Flyer said:


> Toyota and other Japanese manufacturers don't offer small diesels in North America because we are focussed only on BIG gas engines. They all offer small diesels in other places, Europe, Australia, Africa, etc.


One of these would be nice: Honda Accord Tourer i-CTDi : ESTATE OF THE DIESEL ART - Yahoo! Cars UK. Much nicer than the USDM Accord, which has really packed on the pounds of late.

They would never sell many in North America though, as we don't like diesels and don't like wagons. I can't fault the Japanese makers for coming out with cars designed with North American tastes in mind as that is their major market - you don't see many Japanese cars in Europe.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Adrian. said:


> The other thing to consider with VWs is that they make a lot of diesels and have for a long time. Toyota or Honda offer no diesels AFAIK. Perhaps someone more mechanically inclined than enlighten this, but as far as I know, diesels break less often but when they do it is quite expensive to fix them.


Diesels are "simpler" engines, since they use compression to ignite rather than a spark. Diesels are more rugged because of the higher cylinder pressures involved. A gas engine has a typical 8:1 compression ratio, while "high compression" gas engines will be 9.5:1 to 12:1 for some exotics. High compression engines need fuel that will not preignite - hence why they need "premium" fuel - which isn't better, but rather, ignites at a higher temperature.

A diesel, on the other hand, will have a compression ratio no lower than 15:1, and more typically, will be in the 20:1 range. That is double the pressure, or 4 times the stress. So because a diesel is so much more beefed-up, they last longer.

Diesels offer less horsepower per unit of fuel because diesel itself is a heavier fuel and has less heat content. However, because of the high compression ratios, diesels have a much higher tractive power - that is, they can pull a much heavier load which would otherwise stall a gasoline engine. You just don't need as much indicated HP from a diesel as from a gas engine, as long as you are not looking for some rapid acceleration properties. In layman's terms, a diesel will have less HP but higher "torque" because it will not load down as a gasoline engine would.

Diesels need a fairly complex fuel injection system, and because of the high pressures, tend to rap and otherwise sound "like a tank". Advances in insulation and of special chambers in the head that improve fuel dispersion and ignition help this. Diesels are also hard to start in the winter, but this is reduced by glow plugs that warm the cylinders up before taking off.

As for the various countries. The emission standards in Japan basically rule out diesels because of "soot", and diesels are reserved for those heavy-duty tasks that gasoline is unfit for, like bulldozers and other heavy equipment. Japanese makers long ago decided to consolidate their Diesels into one company - so potentially, if there was an advantage, the Japanese makers would all draw their engines from one company, if they wanted to. In Germany, on the other hand, the government endorsed diesels, and VW was given a long term contract to develop Diesel motive power. Thus, VW and Benz have highly advanced diesel engines that are ready for most markets.

North American makers have access to Diesel technology, and do offer diesels in some heavy duty trucks and vans. But they were reluctant to roll out such units to the car market. The Ford-Perkins engine was very reliable, and by swapping out heads, the base engine was able to run on gasoline, kerosene or diesel; but were basically only found on farms and in some Marmon-Harrington 4x4 specialty trucks.

GM attempted a similar thing, by making a diesel head that would bolt onto a 350 block. However, the engines suffered cataclysmic failures because of the high pressures of Diesel ignition that the engines could not handle. So instead of coming out with something better - like buying it from their own Detriot Diesel or Allison Engine division - they gave up on it all together.

California emissions also hampered such a move, as California is the single largest car market in the world, and offering a car than can not fit into that market was viewed as a bad move, especially for GM that can only make a profit if they manage to sell a half million of any given unit.

As for cost - Diesels are more expensive to make because the injector pumps are complex, and there is much more metal; but they have fewer breakdowns because of a lack of an ignition system, or such things as a carburetter. When they do finally fail, it's usually because they are plain worn out, or suffered some kind of stress that broke important parts, which would be expensive because it's all about a new engine.

The injector pumps are also incredibly complex, but because they are so complex, they are overengineered so people really never have problems with them. Of course, water in the fuel is a huge problem on a diesel, which can lead to the engine breaking because of hydrolock. Precautions are made to trap water, whereas a gasoline engine actually benefits from a small amount of moisture in the system.


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

dona83 said:


> Car & Driver will equally talk smack about every vehicle, making them a good unbiased source.
> 
> I like Canadian Driver, they're a good bunch.
> 
> I've heard that taxis love hybrids, not just because of fuel savings but maintenance savings as well. They talked about one of their original Priuses that still have 700,000km on the original battery which still works, and regenerative braking means less wear and tear on the friction braking systems.


Agreed on Canadian Driver, I also like these guys: New Car Reviews, Ratings & Pricing, Auto News for New Models ? TTAC, as you might guess from some of the links I've posted.

While I'm not a hybrid (hype-brid?) fan in general, I agree that taxis & delivery vehicles are one application where they make a lot of sense. They are ideally suited for lots of stop and go miles in a short period of time.


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## bsenka (Jan 27, 2009)

mc3251 said:


> Well....hang on. You say in an earlier post that consumer reports aren't reliable source on anything-and now you want to agree with them when they praise Macs. Can't have it both ways.


That's not what I said. I said they are an unreliable source, period.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bsenka said:


> That's not what I said. I said they are an unreliable source, period.


No, you said:



> Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're out to lunch. It's a crap shoot.


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

PenguinBoy said:


> One of these would be nice: Honda Accord Tourer i-CTDi : ESTATE OF THE DIESEL ART - Yahoo! Cars UK. Much nicer than the USDM Accord, which has really packed on the pounds of late.


You can find the JDM Accord in the form of the Acura TSX... too bad they don't have the wagon here. Agreed on the USDM Accord but it's nice you can get a fully loaded Accord sedan with leather and NAVI with a 6 speed manual transmission (and I've seen a few around including one near my house). Honda's one of the few giving the manual transmission the love it needs, the Accord may be insanely obese but good for them.



PenguinBoy said:


> Agreed on Canadian Driver, I also like these guys: New Car Reviews, Ratings & Pricing, Auto News for New Models ? TTAC, as you might guess from some of the links I've posted.
> 
> While I'm not a hybrid (hype-brid?) fan in general, I agree that taxis & delivery vehicles are one application where they make a lot of sense. They are ideally suited for lots of stop and go miles in a short period of time.


Thanks, I'll check that site out!

While I think Hybrids are still in the baby stages, my boss has a Highlander Hybrid and he just absolutely loves it, especially the EV Mode. He's planning to get the plug-in modification to go with the EV Mode and he'll hardly use any gas.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

Macfury said:


> No, you said:


Thank you MF....your support is noted and banked for future considerations.
;>)


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

What next??? - China it appears.....

GM Driving Toward Chinese-Made Cars For America - The Car Connection


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

MacDoc said:


> What next??? - China it appears.....
> 
> GM Driving Toward Chinese-Made Cars For America - The Car Connection


No good can come of this.

The Chinese will get access to GM technology and the North American market. They will get a chance to work the bugs out of their North American offerings on GM's dime.

GM will get nothing - except for even more brand dilution.


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

GM's joint venture with Suzuki isn't doing particularly well either:


> Suzuki Motor Corp. has suspended output indefinitely at its joint venture assembly factory in Ingersoll, Ont. as bankruptcy protection looms for General Motors Corp., its partner in the facility.
> 
> The Japanese-based automaker has built only four sports utility vehicles at the CAMI Automotive Inc. plant this year through March. Last year in the first quarter it cranked out 5,683 units


source: Suzuki suspends output at Ingersoll plant


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

End of an era:
reportonbusiness.com: End of an era in Oshawa


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## bsenka (Jan 27, 2009)

Macfury said:


> No, you said:


I know what I said. It's the exactly same thing.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bsenka said:


> I know what I said. It's the exactly same thing.


No it isn't. Come on.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

If GM's "plan" is just to make their cars in China - then it's time to pull the plug on bailing them out. Any bailout should demand that GM start making modern vehicles that people want to buy, not some ancient turd made to the cheapest quality possible by slave labour. It's not like a bailout will "save jobs" - better to give all of the workers a quarter million each for early retirement, and put the corruptovores that run that sad corporation out on the street...


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

It's written down for heaven's sake!


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## bsenka (Jan 27, 2009)

Macfury said:


> No it isn't. Come on.


Yes it is. 



mc3251 said:


> It's written down for heaven's sake!


I know that, I wrote it.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bsenka said:


> Yes it is.
> 
> I know that, I wrote it.


The Black Knight declares his victory:


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Macfury said:


> The Black Knight declares his victory:


'E still 'as 'es 'ead!...


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## bsenka (Jan 27, 2009)

Macfury said:


> The Black Knight declares his victory:


You guys are the ones in denial here. You have not shown any instance where I claimed differing positions regarding Consumer Reports. I said at first, maintain now, and never wavered in between, that they are an unreliable source.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

> *GM tells 1,100 U.S. dealers it's time to pack it in*
> 
> TOM KRISHER
> The Associated Press, The Canadian Press
> ...


more

reportonbusiness.com: GM tells 1,100 U.S. dealers it's time to pack it in


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Closing dealaerships like that will only serve to hinder any chance of recovery - but on the bright side, it will be a major boon for vandals and graffiti artists...


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## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

MacDoc said:


> more
> 
> reportonbusiness.com: GM tells 1,100 U.S. dealers it's time to pack it in


Hopefully they do this in Canada as well there are some parts of Toronto that have 2 GM dealers for example there is a Pontiac/GMC at Dufferin and 401 and there is a Chevy dealer down a few blocks at Dufferin and Orfus, why don't they downsize the number of dealers but have all dealers cater to all there brands.

Laterz


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

*Chevs Made in China*



> “Using taxpayer money to subsidize U.S. job losses,” is how the United Auto Workers (UAW) describes GM's move to tighten their belts, slash production costs, and make the most of their $15.4 borrowed billion by outsourcing to China. GM has already plucked the suckling Pontiac and Saturn from their proverbial tit and are prepared to slash a few more sucklers' in the form of U.S. Laborers...
> 
> While they have not dropped the ball themselves, reports by Automotive News indicate that by 2011, GM intends to sell over 17,000 exported vehicles from China to the U.S., doubling that to over 50,000 by 2014. This would make GM the first pioneer to bring a “Made in China” vehicle to America, which is something China has been attempting to do for quite some time now.
> 
> ...


GM's New Strategy: ?Made in China? : TreeHugger


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Any money wasted on these car companie will never be seen again and will pay no benefit or dividend to North America. The U.S, government has already completed a huge shift of public money into the private hands of bankers and is now looking for creative ways to give money to auto unions (I would have guessed the car companies themselves, but the structure of all of these deals indicates that the UAW is the real beneficiary). Wave goodbye to it folks--this cash is gone for good. Perhaps the Chinese will send a thank you card.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

How depressing. 
I'm not sure what the alternatives are, though...just let them go down? The argument is that the effect on the economy would be horrific. 
Then again, perhaps that's happening in any case.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

mc3251 said:


> How depressing.
> I'm not sure what the alternatives are, though...just let them go down? The argument is that the effect on the economy would be horrific.
> Then again, perhaps that's happening in any case.


Michael: Let them go down. Why give them money to build factories in China? The company is going down for the third time, with or without armloads of public cash.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

I agree. GM particularly has been arrogantly refusing to meet customer needs for years. They have done nothing as the Asian manufacturers kicked their butts all over the block. Something better will rise from the ashes, in all likelihood.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I believe tha GM is so blinded by its own arrogance and self-importance that it can't begin to perceive what's wrong with using the money to move production to China.


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## bsenka (Jan 27, 2009)

mc3251 said:


> How depressing.
> I'm not sure what the alternatives are, though...just let them go down? The argument is that the effect on the economy would be horrific.


They have to be allowed to sink or swim on their own. If they go down, they go down. All that's happening now is stretching the drama out. The auto sector is really the last major part of the recession that hasn't gotten its house in order. Virtually all other markers of the economy are already in recovery.


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

Macfury said:


> I believe tha GM is so blinded by its own arrogance and self-importance that it can't begin to perceive what's wrong with using the money to move production to China.


They're just trying to apply the methods of Japanese automakers again - in this case Nissan asking for assistance from the Japanese government, then moving production out of Japan.

CorpWatch : JAPAN: Nissan to Slash Payroll, Pare Japanese Output


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Eventually they'll run out of places to shift production to.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Macfury said:


> Eventually they'll run out of places to shift production to.


Once they find a country that will provide free forced labour.

GM's done, time to leave that relic for the historians and move on to other things. It would be better if we just paid off the workers so they do not have to work, rather than handing fat amounts of cash over to corporates that are just going to use it to build plants in China.

Once GM starts making their cars in China - imagine how low quality they will be. Maybe they can make one that is even cruddier than my Chevy was...


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

Aren't most Macs made in China?


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

mc3251 said:


> Aren't most Macs made in China?


Perhaps. But the taxpayer isn't being asked to finance the deal.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

Point taken. What I was actually commenting on, or questioning, was the assumption that because the cars are built in China they will be worse quality. Not necessarily so. 
Taxpayer subsidization is another conversation.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Michael: At this point I have no idea whether an American computer might be better than an Asian-built model...I've got nothing for comparison!!


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## bsenka (Jan 27, 2009)

mc3251 said:


> What I was actually commenting on, or questioning, was the assumption that because the cars are built in China they will be worse quality. Not necessarily so.


It would not surprise me at all to see GM quality actually increase with production moved to China.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

mc3251 said:


> Point taken. What I was actually commenting on, or questioning, was the assumption that because the cars are built in China they will be worse quality. Not necessarily so.
> Taxpayer subsidization is another conversation.


Apple had better quality when they were built elsewhere - they started building them in China, the quality slid, and they started using inferior components, like their cheap fake screens.

But for GM, the move will just end up being their ruin, since even if their quality remains the same, which is doubtful, the closed dealerships and bad warranty coverage experience will be their final death. Plus, sinc ethey are no longer making trucks, and do not have any cars in the lineup that anyone would want, I am not sure what they are going to peddle.

Funny thing is, they have a twist in their commercial, where they are attempting to compare their product to Honda. They say that their Malibu gets better mileage than Accord. Well, grammatically, they are actually saying that the Malibu gets better mileage than a Cord... Which is quite funny, considering that even on that point, I'd rather have a Cord than any current GM crud. They try to put down Honda lawnmowers - as if GM could even build something like a lawnmower. Well, maybe a riding mower, no one would be able to push the GM version around, with the Vortec V-8, with XM satellite radio and OnStar.

You know, Ford is getting mouthy enough, saying that their crud is better than Toyota (though I haven't seen a Toyota with wheels exploding in the past two decades, if ever) - it's another thing for GM to say anything about quality, since they made some terrible wretches, like the Chevy Corsica / Pontiac Tempest. The last time GM made anything better than Honda was, ummm, urrr, maybe in the early 60's, before Honda went F1...


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## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

EvanPitts said:


> You know, Ford is getting mouthy enough, saying that their crud is better than Toyota (though I haven't seen a Toyota with wheels exploding in the past two decades, if ever)


That's ok Toyota doesn't make anything exciting to push hard enough to even try to blow up there tires, actually since Honda stopped making the S2000 they qualify as boring as well now.

Laterz


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Some seem to think the past is the present... gets wearisome.....



> *Ford outsells Toyota as April sales tumble
> Sixth time in seven months that Ford takes retail market share*


Ford outsells Toyota as April sales tumble - Autos- msnbc.com

with good reason...


----------



## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

MacDoc said:


> Some seem to think the past is the present... gets wearisome.....
> 
> Ford outsells Toyota as April sales tumble - Autos- msnbc.com
> 
> with good reason...


and they're sales will only get stronger as the new Fiesta is due to arrive at dealerships any day now.

Laterz


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

EvanPitts said:


> You know, Ford is getting mouthy enough, saying that their crud is better than Toyota (though I haven't seen a Toyota with wheels exploding in the past two decades, if ever) -


Toyota still makes a reasonably good product - but there is at least some evidence that their best work is behind them. Compare the dashboard of an early '90s Camry with a current one to see the evidence of cost cutting. I don't think they stand head and shoulders above the competition the way they did 15 or 20 years ago.

As for wheels falling off, google "Toyota Recalls" - you'll find no shortage of potentially dangerous defects.


EvanPitts said:


> it's another thing for GM to say anything about quality, since they made some terrible wretches, like the Chevy Corsica / Pontiac Tempest. The last time GM made anything better than Honda was, ummm, urrr, maybe in the early 60's, before Honda went F1...


The Corsica / Tempest was introduced well over 20 years ago - so even though it was junk, it doesn't have any bearing on the quality of current GM products.

Now that Toyota has become the new GM, some are touting Hyundai as the new Toyota - yet when the Corsica was introduced you could still buy a new Pony. As bad as the mid '80s GM dreck may have been, the Hyundai products of the day were in a class by themselves...


----------



## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

K_OS said:


> That's ok Toyota doesn't make anything exciting to push hard enough to even try to blow up there tires, actually since Honda stopped making the S2000 they qualify as boring as well now.
> 
> Laterz


Not too much is more exciting that a Focus loosing a wheel or two out on the 400, or an Exploder doing it's thing. But then, Ford at least attempted to address their myriad of problems and does have some modern technologies - unlike GM or Chrysler with their woefully obsolete vehicles.

The only reason why Honda and Toyota don't being their sports cars here is simply because of a lack of a market. Both companies do have such vehicles in the US, only because that market supports such products. Canadians are not into sports cars enough to justify the costs of meeting regulations, though one can buy a fair amount of excitement with a Subaru WRX or a Nissan 350ZX, or for those that want to be strapped to the engine, they still have the Mazda Miata (I think)...


----------



## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

MacDoc said:


> Some seem to think the past is the present... gets wearisome.....
> 
> Ford outsells Toyota as April sales tumble - Autos- msnbc.com
> 
> with good reason...


Yeah, Ford is shelling out some rather large incentives with their 5-0 scheme, with no deposit, no money down, no interest, etc... Really, any car company can grab more market share if they wish to sell their products below cost, knowing that they can easily con some Legislators into forking over some Corporate Welfraud...


----------



## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Sure  - they turned down any gov money and of course there are sales incentives in this market......all of them are doing it so it sounds like a level playing field doesn't it.

Says nothing about their quality.....which the reviewers do rather stridently....but keep stoking the conspiracy fantasy if that turns your crank.

Not everything has the miasma of Hamilton attached to it.


----------



## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

EvanPitts said:


> Not too much is more exciting that a Focus loosing a wheel or two out on the 400, or an Exploder doing it's thing. But then, Ford at least attempted to address their myriad of problems and does have some modern technologies - unlike GM or Chrysler with their woefully obsolete vehicles.
> 
> The only reason why Honda and Toyota don't being their sports cars here is simply because of a lack of a market. Both companies do have such vehicles in the US, only because that market supports such products. Canadians are not into sports cars enough to justify the costs of meeting regulations, though one can buy a fair amount of excitement with a Subaru WRX or a Nissan 350ZX, or for those that want to be strapped to the engine, they still have the Mazda Miata (I think)...


you're still out to lunch I had a Focus and knew allot of people that bought them and nobody ever had there wheels come off not on the 401 and not on the racetrack where I spent allot of time with my Focus. As for Honda and Toyota having different products in the US than in Canada that is a load of BS there product portfolios is pretty much the same in Canada as it is in the US, even in europe Honda and Toyota's are boring.

See your knowledge of cars is still outdated Nissan no longer makes the 350ZX they have a 370ZX now but it still costs almost as much as a Mustang and you still won't have as much fun with it, if you're going to buy a 370ZX go look at the new Hyundai Genesis Coupe basically same looks with roughly the same performance as the 370ZX but without the sticker shock.

As for the WRX I was so sold on the performance of the car that I bought one back in '04 the car still blows me away how well balanced it is, if you want to be blown away in performance go take a Cobalt SS coupe with the turbo and lsd and it will blow away a Civic Si away all day long on the race track, I took a Cobalt SS on a test drive and I was impressed by the cars composure on the road and the few twisty bits of road that I managed to find.

The problem is that we don't care about exciting cars that are fun to drive and the car companies know this so we are shoved crappy un-exciting cars down our throats (ierius, Insight, Corolla, Civic, SX4) or if we really want an exciting car we have to pay trough the nose for it.

Laterz


----------



## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

PenguinBoy said:


> Toyota still makes a reasonably good product - but there is at least some evidence that their best work is behind them.


All companies have their problems, but it is a matter of scope. Japanese companies generally have rather small recalls - while GM can still muster the willpower to put on the million vehicle recalls. It also comes down to customer service. The Japanese tend not to make a big stink over warranty or recall issues - if there's a problem, they attend to it.

GM, on the other hand, will try to pawn of the problem, and accuse the customer of "absuing the vehicle" or other such nonsense. This came to light with recent GM cars that burst into flames - to GM, it was obviously the owners "problem", since they didn't properly maintain the car, blah blah blah... This was the same attitude evidenced years ago when owners were blames for their diesel engines falling apart, of gas tanks falling off their cars, etc.

If they both made equally good cars - GM would still be on the loosing side because the customer service attitude at GM dealers is simply atrocious, and has long been atrocious. And this is why people fled GM in the first place. In my own experience, I was fine with my Buick, even though it had problems - but the Chevy was a lump of trash, and GM wouldn't cover anything, including any of the five alternators I had in four years - which were obviously defective because of my driving habits, as they said.

It also goes without saying that GM simply does not have cars that fit into any of the market niches these days. They do not have a 1.8L 4 cylinder vehicle on the market, they have not brought out a hybrid, and they cling to old technologies stuffed into giant SUVs. The market responded, abandoning GM like no tomorrow...



> I don't think they stand head and shoulders above the competition the way they did 15 or 20 years ago.


I didn't think they stood heads and shoulders - they just had a more competently assembled product with better customer service. GM was peddling badge engineered garbage loaded with geegaws - while Toyota and Honda were busy on making something that would last more than two years. What does show is that GM has become all-pro at making tired, obsolete cars - and blaming it on things like the Pontiac name - rather than on the shoddy products no one wants. It is particularly true, now that people realize that $1.40/L gas is entirely attainable, putting all of GM's products out of the realm of afforable driving.



> The Corsica / Tempest was introduced well over 20 years ago - so even though it was junk, it doesn't have any bearing on the quality of current GM products.


You are right - GM's now are worse than back then, since the competition has moved on, while GM is making stuff that is worse than the Corsica.



> As bad as the mid '80s GM dreck may have been, the Hyundai products of the day were in a class by themselves...


They were also half the price of the cheapest GM product of the day. Hyundai is an example of a company that, even though they made the Pony, they just didn't stick around making the same crud. They moved on, and have a really good car on the market now. Same with Toyotas, the first ones I experienced years ago were biodegradable junk - but they moved on. The same can't be said with GM - its the same old tired ideas and the same lack of innovation, that makes their current vehicles somewhat less of what they were years ago.

That brings us back around to the current situation, where basically, GM has no actual "plan". It's business as usual, all about ripping off workers, stealing pension money, grabbing fast cash from legislators - while doling out the same, unmarketable vehicles but with the ultimate plan of making those vehicles on the cheap offshore. They just don't have a clue. Everyone was scared away with $1.40/L gas - few people are going to buy some 9MPG SUV from GM with that possibility on the horizon. The problem isn't Toyota, or Honda, or anyone else. The core of the problem is the corrupt and degenerate leadership within GM, that sees nothing wrong with voting themselves fat $20 Million bonuses while their corporation bleeds tens of millions of dollars a day. They can't open their eyes to the reality, that they are entirely unable to compete with their lean competition that is ready to fill any niche in the market with a superior products.

There is no need for it. GM was handed billions of dollars from the Governments to develop a PNGV car, and failed. Even when they brought out the EV1 - they were the ones how canned it, while other producers were doing things. Even with conventional cars, GM persisted in using their obsolete push rod engine designs from the 60's, while all other makers developed overhead cam engines. GM persisted in spending billions on geegaws like OnStar - which might have been a winner if it was not proprietary. GM also persisted in "making fast cash" through the sub-prime mortgage deal, through their GMAC subsidiary which was marketed at DiTech.Com. Fast money that was not invested into anything worthy - unless worthy means the extravagant lifestyles of the executives at Grosse Point, living a lifestyle that even the most degenerate Saudi oil prince would consider excessive and decadent.

The taxpayer shouldn't bother wasting cash on this scam. Billions will be spent in "reorganizing", code for "make it in China". They have few cars that will be marketable in the short or long term. Better than we just use the cash to soup up the pension plans, so at least the worker has a chance at retirement - than to watch all this money get flushed down the toilet in the biggest scam this side of Enron.


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## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

EvanPitts said:


> Yeah, Ford is shelling out some rather large incentives with their 5-0 scheme, with no deposit, no money down, no interest, etc... Really, any car company can grab more market share if they wish to sell their products below cost, knowing that they can easily con some Legislators into forking over some Corporate Welfraud...


still spewing out the misinformation? every car company is shelling out on the incentives so if Ford is gaining market share and they didn't take any government handouts yet they must be doing something right.

Also did you read that Toyota managed to loose 7.7 billion in the last quarter and that they might be asking the Japanese government for a handout so it's not all that it's cracked up to be across the Pacific, it's tough allover for everybody don't count anybody in or out of the car race.

Laterz


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## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

EvanPitts said:


> There is no need for it. GM was handed billions of dollars from the Governments to develop a PNGV car, and failed. Even when they brought out the EV1 - they were the ones how canned it, while other producers were doing things. Even with conventional cars, GM persisted in using their obsolete push rod engine designs from the 60's, while all other makers developed overhead cam engines. GM persisted in spending billions on geegaws like OnStar - which might have been a winner if it was not proprietary. GM also persisted in "making fast cash" through the sub-prime mortgage deal, through their GMAC subsidiary which was marketed at DiTech.Com. Fast money that was not invested into anything worthy - unless worthy means the extravagant lifestyles of the executives at Grosse Point, living a lifestyle that even the most degenerate Saudi oil prince would consider excessive and decadent.


I would take one of those obsolete pushrod's in a new Vette Vs any POS whiny Japanese 4cyl overhead cam any day.

Laterz


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

K_OS said:


> you're still out to lunch I had a Focus and knew allot of people that bought them and nobody ever had there wheels come off...


However, it did happen, and did much to clobber the image of the Focus in the years it was introduced. They did improve quality later on, but my point is these things have lots to do with image, and for Ford, that image was tainted by the thrifting that went on when they brought the Focus here.

Perhaps it is unscientific, but if one Googles, one will find that "toyota corolla recall" yields 195,000 hits, while "ford focus recall" yields 1,325,000 hits. Considering the Focus was here from 2001, while the Corolla is prehistoric.

My point isn't that a specific car is shoddy or not - it is in the image of that car, as well as what happens when a recall does happen. Corolla's spent a decade and a half without a safety recall, a record that the Big 3 can not attain. It also comes down to the service after, and the foreign marques have the advantage since they are more than willing to fix problems, while GM and Chrysler usually have to be forced into it by the courts. Ford has had the benefit of not playing the game, and I think they have learned things - and Ford will give much less of a hassle than GM or Chrysler.



> As for Honda and Toyota having different products in the US than in Canada that is a load of BS there product portfolios is pretty much the same in Canada as it is in the US, even in europe Honda and Toyota's are boring.


Lots of models are not available, like the Celica, which was long available in the US though not available here. At least half of VW's models are absent from the Canadian market, like the Polo, the EuroVan, etc... It's just the way it is. For years, Caandians could buy a Mercury truck, even though none had ever been made for the US market, as well as the Acadian, which was a Canada only vehicle. There are tons of examples from all manufacturers. A lot oft he speed equipment available in Japan is simply absent here, quite often because of various regulations that make it cost prohibitive to import niche vehicles into this country (outside of the grey market).



> ...if you want to be blown away in performance go take a Cobalt SS coupe with the turbo and lsd and it will blow away a Civic Si away all day long on the race track...


This also supports my point - if this vehicle actually does exist, GM is not telling anyone about it. Nothing has serviced GM worse by having special models that people would buy but no one knows about; compounded with the special models that GM touts heavily but are not available at a dealership near you. I assume a Cobalt is a GM - because that tells you something. I was long a big GM fan, I drove GMs, knew every model - then became so disgruntled that I don't even know what they sell any more, well, next to their Pontiac version of the Matrix. GM just does not have any positive image to put forward, or cache, and most people have simply fled to other makes, even the most devout.

GM is done, stick a fork in it and move on.



> The problem is that we don't care about exciting cars that are fun to drive and the car companies know this so we are shoved crappy un-exciting cars down our throats (ierius, Insight, Corolla, Civic, SX4) or if we really want an exciting car we have to pay trough the nose for it.


I don't think it's all about exciting cars - because for real excitement, you'd probably have to get a Panoz. One has to look at the whole market, which we can compare. The Prius and Insight are not sports cars - but neither can you buy a Hybrid from GM. The Corolla and Civic are excellent, general purpose vehicles for the masses - but nothing from GM fits into this class of vehicle (while the Ford Focus does). When it comes to sports cars, the Corvette is unique, but all of the sporty cars that GM does have are usually nothing more than a regular car with some decals, or an atrocity like the Quad-4. If they do have something interesting, it's really buried because they don't toot their horn about them.

It all comes down to GM's next move - which I think will be to file bankrupcy, with all of the potential good bits cleaved off, while the rest becomes history. No one thought they could do in AC/Delco, but they managed that achievement in record time. I also think it is wrong to bail them out, since we did not bail out other makes, like Packard and Studebaker. Why should GM be handed a wad of cash so they can continue to close plants, throw workers out on the street, and move their tooling to China?


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

EvanPitts said:


> The Prius and Insight are not sports cars - but neither can you buy a Hybrid from GM.


GM | Hybrid Cars, SUVs & Trucks - Hybrid Technology


EvanPitts said:


> The Corolla and Civic are excellent, general purpose vehicles for the masses - but nothing from GM fits into this class of vehicle (while the Ford Focus does).


Saturn Canada - 2009 Saturn ASTRA 5 Door Hatchback


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

EvanPitts said:


> Yeah, Ford is shelling out some rather large incentives with their 5-0 scheme, with no deposit, no money down, no interest, etc... Really, any car company can grab more market share if they wish to sell their products below cost, knowing that they can easily con some Legislators into forking over some Corporate Welfraud...


I doubt Ford will go for a bailout, as then the Ford family would have to give up control of the company and their future as rich plutocrats would be threatened. This is probably good for Ford in the long run - BMW products improved a lot after their near death experience in the late '50s, and it's possible that one reason the turnaround was successful was because the Quandt family had so much skin in the game.

I can see Ford going for loan guarantees at some point - but then even Toyota has already done that: Toyota seeks loan from Japanese government | mydigitalfc.com


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

K_OS said:


> and they're sales will only get stronger as the new Fiesta is due to arrive at dealerships any day now.


If they can launch the Fiesta smoothly with minimal problems, it looks like it would be a strong competitor to the Fit and Yaris.

The Fiesta has already had some positive reviews: YouTube - Top Gear - Jeremy Clarkson road tests the Ford Fiesta 1/2 and YouTube - Top Gear - Jeremy Clarkson road tests the Ford Fiesta 2/2

Ford is also trying to market the Fiesta to the "millennials" using new media: Ford Bets the Fiesta on Social Networking | Autopia | Wired.com. If you were born in the '80s "your father's Oldsmobile" was likely a Camry - so they might be able to generate some conquest sales if they play their cards right.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

PenguinBoy said:


> GM | Hybrid Cars, SUVs & Trucks - Hybrid Technology


They are still not available at a dealership near you, and I quote from the GM Fine Print: Very limited availability in selected markets: Select markets include the following cities: Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Phoenix, Boston, Sacramento, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia.

So sure, you can get a giant GM Hybrid SUV - but you will need to move to Philly. It's nothing more than a show - so GM brass can show up and panhandle for more money from Congress and point to the fact that the 100 specially equipped trucks are on the market. It's utter nonsense, and besides, it isn't a GM Hybrid, they just purchased it elsewhere for this passion play. 

The whole point is that GM has been a donkey for decades, consigned to being a junk bond long before $1.40/L gas or the current collapse of the market. They simply gave up on making anything that people wanted, peddled junk, and now want the taxpayer to flip the bill. This current nonsense is just that, nonsense. GM has no interest in alternative fuels or hybrids or fuel efficiency - they just want to grab some fast loot from the government so they can score some fat bonuses while their corporation fades into obscurity.

And Obama may have signed their death warrant, having signaled that the Administration is about to push new CAFE standards, where manufacturers will have to attain a fleet average of 35MPG (American) and a reduction of emissions by 30% by 2016. GM is doomed, since they do not have any efficient engines, their hybrids are a ruse, and emissions - GM still hasn't brought out LEV engines - a class that was made obsolete by every other maker five years ago when they all went ULEV.



> Saturn Canada - 2009 Saturn ASTRA 5 Door Hatchback


It's a dead duck, since GM is pulling the plug on Saturn.

Chrysler has a better chance of doing something, since they at least make some cool looking cars. All they need to do is refrain from building the industry's worst powertrains...


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

"Last Thursday, a few hours before the stock market opened for the day, General Motors Corp. announced its results for the first quarter of 2009. They were terrible. The company reported a loss of $6 billion US. Even worse, it revealed it had burned through $10 billion in cash in January, February, and March. GM went on to discuss that the second quarter would be at least equally, if not more "challenging." Later in the day, there was mention of bankruptcy. However, GM President Fritz Henderson assured the investment community that the company was doing everything in its power to prevent that.

I'm a simple, plainspoken guy. When I hear talk like that, I'm expecting that everyone within General Motors - particularly the most senior executives - are battening down the hatches and working harder than ever to turn the company around. They're not taking time out in the middle of the day to do things like call their stockbrokers and dump their remaining GM shares. 

Yet according to recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, that's precisely what happened right after General Motors told the world exactly how bad it was doing. A handful of top execs, including vice-chairman Bob Lutz, sold approximately 200,000 shares … then duly disclosed these sales to the authorities."

Luckily, these shares were purchased as options at a fraction of their selling price. Thus, the executives wisely bailed when the time was right .................. at least right for them to make some big money from the sweat and labor of the workers. 

Money Talks: Michael Hlinka: Share selloff by GM execs hard to swallow


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

EvanPitts said:


> Chrysler has a better chance of doing something, since they at least make some cool looking cars. All they need to do is refrain from building the industry's worst powertrains...


And improve the interior for the Caliber/Compass/Patriot. And a manual transmission in the Avenger/Charger might be nice. I thought the prerequisite for a "fun to drive car" is the manual transmission.

The Saturn Astra's one of the better looking compacts out there and a great alternative to the VW City Golf / new VW Golf coming out soon. The only problem is that more and more GM vehicles are either badge engineered or built elsewhere. Ford may be the only true domestic soon.


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

EvanPitts said:


> They are still not available at a dealership near you...


Have a buddy who bought one a couple of years ago at a dealership in Lethbridge (Frankly, that surprised me, I hadn't heard that GM even made the technology. You'd think that they would be trumpeting this all over the place). Uses it as a service truck for his overhead door business. He did pay a bit of a premium for it but it didn't seem to bad when we discussed it then (I think it was less than $3000).

Seems to like it, I can't recall exact fuel consumption numbers but he says it is definitely an improvement over just gasoline. I don't know which version it is, but there is a V-8 under the hood and the engine turns off at stop lights, etc. Also has the regenerative braking. 

His only concern is the cost of battery replacement if he keeps it that long.


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

FeXL said:


> His only concern is the cost of battery replacement if he keeps it that long.


I don't know about GMs but Toyota Prius' batteries seem to hold up pretty well. One taxi company in Winnipeg has a 2001 with 700,000 kms on it and the batteries are still very strong. leading people to believe that Toyota underestimated the lifespan of the batteries to cover their butts, they said about 8 years for a battery pack but then again the average driver doesn't drive almost 100,000 km a year.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

dona83 said:


> And improve the interior for the Caliber/Compass/Patriot. And a manual transmission in the Avenger/Charger might be nice. I thought the prerequisite for a "fun to drive car" is the manual transmission.


Chrysler would be better off in the long run to source their interiors from someone other than Magna. In the 80's, I got a set of car mats for my Buick from a Chrysler at a scrap yard. It was one of those wedgie shaped "sports" sedans they were peddling, but I can't recall what they were called. (Nor was it readily identifiable as it was a wreck). Those mats were whack, and I mean, whack. Plush like craziness, matched the Buick paint code, and actually fit much better than the crud GM was putting in the Buick. Talk about water holding, no need for pants savers in winter - those mats were so luxe one needed two people to lift the mat out to dump it. Aston-Martin, for many years, used Chrysler made seats in their ultra-luxe Lagonda, simply because they couldn't make something as light and as strong, though of course, the Lagonda people referred to the seats as "ironmongery".

Relying on outside suppliers just has not worked too well, Magna makes more cash by making inferior products from the cheapest materials, while paying their workers minimal wage - than Chrysler does actually selling the end product. Taking steps to make the interiors look and feel as cool as the exteriors would go a long way. Chrysler used to have good interiors - in the 60's.

The Caliber and Nitro were hampered by being introduced at the same time Morgan-Stanley was cornering the petroleum market. If Chrysler could build in some fit and finish, and stop making the fittings look so cheap (like hire a dude to sand off the moulding ridges on the outside of the mirrors) - they'd be more winning, because they have some of the coolest cars going. 

As for a manual - they should make some kind of offering, especially for a sports car. Manuals just are not a good seller in the biggest market in Canada - the GTA, because traffic is gridlock. Euro Drive Clutch does a huge business, for obvious reasons.



> The only problem is that more and more GM vehicles are either badge engineered or built elsewhere. Ford may be the only true domestic soon.


Almost all GM vehicles are badge engineered - quite often to their own detriment. As for Ford, most people want the Fords that are not domestic, like any of the Mazda designed stuff, or the Euro Focus. Ford just made better moves and are in a better position, especially when they can draw on their foreign divisions to plug gaps in the lineup. They will also dominate the truck market, now that GM closed their truck plant in Oshawa.

In the end, I think one will find Ford pushing ahead, Chrysler reaping some benefits from strategic alliances, while GM will simply be butchered with only a small rump left over.

GM's image has been tainted, not just by current events, but by decades of bad vehicles and bad customer service. They just may not recover because generations of die hard GM buyers are all driving something else. It's too little, too late, and revelations about what the top executives are doing (cashing in large) is ruining their case for redemption.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

FeXL said:


> ...(Frankly, that surprised me, I hadn't heard that GM even made the technology. You'd think that they would be trumpeting this all over the place).


It's really a big problem that GM has - and considering the amount of cash they throw at advertising, GM does some of the worst advertising possible, and gets the least possible bang for the buck. For instance, they spent years showing people the SSR, but by the time they made it available, anyone that was interested had either already chopped their S10, or went with a Ford STV or some tricked out Dodge.

GM also loves to bring out these mystery models that just suddenly appear, with no advertising involved; while spending lots of time advertising vapour that hasn't left the drawing board (or CAD/CAM machines). I have no idea what trucks they make anymore, it's just a bunch of names of American places with no actual structure - while Ford, everyone understands the Ford nomenclature, and everyone knows what an F-150 is (or at least should, they've been cranking them out longer than Toyota has been cranking out Land Crushers and FJ Cruisers...) One mystery to me is - what ever happened to the Epsilon that GM was going to make? They advertised it like crazy for a while, then, nothing...

That's the way GM does things, like they will spend billions advertising the Chevy Volt, which is not available anywhere - but a few years from now, if GM doesn't fold shop, all of a sudden there will be one on the road, with no advertisements or anything, and the dealers won't even have a brochure. It was like that when I wanted to buy a Grand National - there was hype, and some ads, then nothing. By the time they brought out the GNX, I already had a Buick for a few years and didn't have the cash - then they just canned the whole thing, because that is the GM way of doing things. It was like that with the Fiero - the early cars were wretches with all kinds of problems. But once they got everything sorted out, and had a V-6, and a lineup of customers with cash in hand - they canned it. I never understood why they got rid of the Camaro years ago - we have a pretty big Gino market here, and they had to migrate to the 5L Rustang for their fix.

These cars were all vehicles that would attract buyers - but since GM can't seem to make money if they don't build a half million of a model - they are doomed. Crazy thing is - GM can entirely learn how to make cash and use modern production methods, seeing that they have long been tight with Toyota, and co-own New Union Motor Manufacturing in California.

Even years ago, these problems were evident. Toyota/GM were co-building the Corolla/Chevy Nova at NUMMI, all on the same line with the same parts except for those parts that would carry the appropriate corporate badging (like the steering wheel, the grille, tailights, emblems...) In consumer surveys, Toyota was by and large the winner, while the owners of the GM product (which was identical) were generally disgruntled. So it is not just quality of the product, because in this case, NUMMI build all of the cars on the same line with the same people and methods - but I think it is the end service at the dealerships. Toyota commands a price, with little room to haggle, so people get the impression it must be "better" because the dealer is not chopping $2000 off the top like a GM dealer would to push cars.

Service is another aspect, and in the time I have owned Toyotas, I have never had one iota of problem with service, and in fact, have been generous on warranty issues. When I was in my GM years, every trip for service seemed to involve me needing to refer to "my lawyer" and to the need to go "to court" to resolve the impasse. Now it may very well be that we have really bad GM dealerships in this area - while the Toyota dealers are exemplary, but the numbers don't tell another tale.

I also think the Nova was hampered by the dealerships and by the way GM slotted it into their lineup. For Toyota, the Corolla is the intermediate car between the Tercel / Echo / Vitz / Yaris vehicles and the uprated Corona / Camry. At GM, on the other hand, it is "the car over there", not fitting between any models or filling any niche, but only available because GM owns half of NUMMI. 

The same can be said with the Toyota Matrix / Pontiac Vibe. Both are built by identical means at NUMMI (though newer Matrix models are now made at Cambridge as well), and thus, have identical "quality" (at least the ones made at NUMMI). For Toyota, it fits into the lineup as a Corolla for someone who wants a wagon. Instant market segment for people like me who want some payload but don't need or want a giant van. For GM, they assigned it to Pontiac - which they market as a collection of oddball vehicular objects like the Aztec, you know, the stuff no other GM division is willing to take. It doesn't fit into the GM lineup, since it doesn't even remotely look like any other Pontiac, and the only difference between it and the Matrix for a few years was that the Vibe included a built in inverter, which one can buy at Canadian Tire for $60. It just doesn't fit into GM's scheme of things, next to the grille. But it's sales are hampered not by technology or quality, but by the bad impression that one gets at the GM dealership.

I just don't think GM can overcome these problems - even if they outright buy all of their vehicles from other manufacturers, and affix their own grilles, the GM dealership experience is a toxin indeed. And OnStar sounds cool, until you get your first bill - then it's out with the duct tape so no one can push that button again.


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## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

EvanPitts said:


> And Obama may have signed their death warrant, having signaled that the Administration is about to push new CAFE standards, where manufacturers will have to attain a fleet average of 35MPG (American) and a reduction of emissions by 30% by 2016. GM is doomed, since they do not have any efficient engines, their hybrids are a ruse, and emissions - GM still hasn't brought out LEV engines - a class that was made obsolete by every other maker five years ago when they all went ULEV.


still at it I see, right now I agree GM's fleet right now probably wouldn't be able to get up to those numbers, but if they live long enough they will release the new Cruze, Spark and Orlando which will be arriving with new high MPG engines that 35MPG won't be a problem.

Laterz


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## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

EvanPitts said:


> I just don't think GM can overcome these problems - even if they outright buy all of their vehicles from other manufacturers, and affix their own grilles, the GM dealership experience is a toxin indeed. And OnStar sounds cool, until you get your first bill - then it's out with the duct tape so no one can push that button again.


Funny you mention this as it's what Toyota is attempting by having Subaru develop they're new rwd sports coupe, and Onstar is free for the 1st year and it is affordable after that.

Toyota-Subaru Rear-Wheel-Drive Coupe in the Works

Laterz


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

> CORRECTED - UPDATE 1-GM bankruptcy plan eyes quick sale to gov't
> Tue May 19, 2009 2:02pm EDT
> 
> (Removes third paragraph with reference to not making any other payment)
> ...


CORRECTED - UPDATE 1-GM bankruptcy plan eyes quick sale to gov't | Deals | Mergers & Acquisitions | Reuters


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I don't think the GM situation could have been handled more poorly than it has been by Bush and Obama.


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## Radio Flyer (Feb 11, 2007)

*Who is really at fault here?*

North American auto makers conducted purchaser preference surveys over the years to seek guidance on what to build. The American auto/truck buyer indicated they want BIG, big SUVs and BIG PUs. Blaming the companies is fair enough but the real culprits are the North American auto/truck buyer. 

I wonder how many of the surveys asked buyer of Japanese imports instead of focusing on buyers of BIG North American vehicles?

The dynamics of the market left the auto makers with their pants down and when looking back, they should have and could have seen the change coming after all we've known oil reserves are limited and some experts say we might have already passed the peak supply point. Still today most people's preference when surveyed think BIG is better, BIG is safer, BIG is more comfortable, BIG has status ... not my thinking but the preference of a large portion of the North American car/truck buyers.

I think bailouts by governments are wrong and have not seen one yet that was a success. The passage of time will offer proof these bailouts are failures too.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Radio Flyer said:


> Blaming the companies is fair enough but the real culprits are the North American auto/truck buyer.


The culprit of what? They want big vehicles of good quality at a reasonable price. If the Big Three can't provide that, they will be purchased from foreign manufacturers. Seems to me GM failed by building too many small cars.


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

FWIW, CAFE fuel mileage standards are more strict than EPA fuel mileage standards so it's really not as bad or not strict enough depending on how you look at it. 

Only the Pontiac Vibe is built at NUMMI in Fremont, not the Toyota Matrix which is built at Cambridge, Ontario. It's the Corolla that's built in both Cambridge and Fremont and the general comments are that the Cambridge built Corollas are way better quality wise than the NUMMI built Corollas which tend to experience little creaks and rattles. 

I wouldn't fault the buyers for demanding bigger... I would blame GM for not asking a more diverse range of people what they want and assuming that everyone wants that. The Aztek is certainly a worse case scenario of oging to an ultra niche group and asking them what they want in an SUV.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

K_OS said:


> still at it I see, right now I agree GM's fleet right now probably wouldn't be able to get up to those numbers, but if they live long enough they will release the new Cruze, Spark and Orlando which will be arriving with new high MPG engines that 35MPG won't be a problem.
> 
> Laterz


Again, talk of vapour products. If GM was really thinking about plugging into the marketplace, they would have had such products years ago - rather than as a sop to please the ears of legislators.

When it comes to emissions, GM failed because they never adopted progressive minded standards like LEV and ULEV - a standard that pretty much every other manufacturer attained, with Ford and Toyota being early adopters, and followed by the crowd soon after.

For mileage, GM failed because their lineup has been heavily slanted towards trucks and truck based SUVs. Of course, they do that because not only can they avoid investing in modern assembly line technology, or modern engines - but they can skirt around pretty much all safety regulations, like side impact standards, that cars must attain. GM is also the only car maker I know that still uses raw steel gas tanks - everyone else uses coated tanks to prevent leaks in the long term.

GM is in trouble because they clearly can not respond to reality. Gas prices spiked a few years ago - they still do not have an efficient car. People are more aware of "carbon" and smog now than ever, and still, GM still does not have LEV or ULEV cars. They talk the dreams, of things like the Volt - GM already had the EV1, they stole them all back and destroyed them; GM also pigged out large in government handouts for the PNGV program, which resulted in a total of zero alternative fueled vehicles.

It is simply that it shows, and even GM is conceeding defeat by closing so many dealerships, knowing that their time is long past, and that they really have no chance of catching up, except as a remarketer of other makers cars.


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## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

EvanPitts said:


> Again, talk of vapour products. If GM was really thinking about plugging into the marketplace, they would have had such products years ago - rather than as a sop to please the ears of legislators.


again you didn't do your homework the Cruze is a world market car it's already selling pretty much allover the world and NA is next in line to get it, and the Spark and Orlando are due for production next year along with the Volt which won't actually make GM has much money as the aforementioned models.



> When it comes to emissions, GM failed because they never adopted progressive minded standards like LEV and ULEV - a standard that pretty much every other manufacturer attained, with Ford and Toyota being early adopters, and followed by the crowd soon after.


GM had ULEV cars has far back has the year 2000 you just don't bother checking.



> For mileage, GM failed because their lineup has been heavily slanted towards trucks and truck based SUVs. Of course, they do that because not only can they avoid investing in modern assembly line technology, or modern engines - but they can skirt around pretty much all safety regulations, like side impact standards, that cars must attain. GM is also the only car maker I know that still uses raw steel gas tanks - everyone else uses coated tanks to prevent leaks in the long term.


You have to sell what your customers want unfortunately there customers wanted big inefficient trucks.



> GM is in trouble because they clearly can not respond to reality. Gas prices spiked a few years ago - they still do not have an efficient car. People are more aware of "carbon" and smog now than ever, and still, GM still does not have LEV or ULEV cars. They talk the dreams, of things like the Volt - GM already had the EV1, they stole them all back and destroyed them; GM also pigged out large in government handouts for the PNGV program, which resulted in a total of zero alternative fueled vehicles.


again the Cobalt, G5, Malibu, Camaro and even the Corvette is fuel efficient on the highway at the speed limit.



> It is simply that it shows, and even GM is conceeding defeat by closing so many dealerships, knowing that their time is long past, and that they really have no chance of catching up, except as a remarketer of other makers cars.


oh yeah closing dealerships is clearly a sign of defeat when in fact its a sign of a company that has finally seen the light and will start making amends to there customers by closing a few dealerships, hopefully they keep good dealers open. Just a note that Renault, Fiat, Nissan, Mazda, Citroen, Peugeot have in the past been close to shutting there doors and tough decisions had to be made like closing dealerships and telling unions that it's either they loose there jobs or loose a bit of pay and keep there jobs, all of the aforementioned car companies are still in business in one way or another.

Laterz


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Sadly it appears that many of the closed dealerships will be in rural communities.

While these are low sales volume dealers. GM will be giving up a very big edge. Forcing rural customers into the big cities to purchase will open options like Toyota and Honda who are badly under represented in rural areas. 

Also the only real advantage to buying big 3 is that if you do break down outside of the big city chances are pretty good that there is a dealer in a nearby town. 

Take away the convenience of the local purchase and the better service network and the inevitable result will be a further erosion of sales. 

If you do have to drive 100+ mile to a dealership you are going to buy the most reliable vehicle you can find.


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

I think it is an endemic problem with all auto makers selling in North America that they do not sell compact cars with luxury or sport features. 

Why is it, that in Europe, Japan or most of the world you can buy Fiats, Alfa Romeos, Renaults, Fords and GMs that are both small and nice inside. 

This for example Vauxhall Tigra:










Cars like this simply aren't offered by GM here. To get the nav panels, to get the sunroof, to get the convertible, the rims, the paint, the interior etc. you have to move up with the actual car size and the engine size. 

This is the same with Toyota, Honda, Subaru, Ford etc.


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

Adrian. said:


> I think it is an endemic problem with all auto makers selling in North America that they do not sell compact cars with luxury or sport features.


Agreed 100%, although this might be ~starting~ to change - cars like the A3 are now offered here. 

Historically I think the car makers always thought the only North Americans who bought small cars couldn't afford big ones, so if you want heated leather seats and climate control you would like to "move up" to a big vehicle.

Europe is a different market with different tastes, it will be interesting to see how premium small cars catch on here. There might now be more people who don't want a huge vehicle for environmental or running cost reasons - but don't want to sit in an interior that looks like a Rubbermaid display at Wal*Mart...


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

eMacMan said:


> Sadly it appears that many of the closed dealerships will be in rural communities.


The human side of this shouldn't be overlooked either - in many of these communities there are unlikely to be comparable jobs for all of the displaced workers.

These closures will likely mean upwards of 10,000 people will be out of work. I have read some articles that claim this amounts to the single largest job loss announcement in Canada.

There will also be a significant ripple effect, for example, already beleaguered local newspapers, TV, and Radio Stations will feel the loss of revenue from ads for free financing on Malibus and Goodwrench service...


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

eMacMan said:


> Sadly it appears that many of the closed dealerships will be in rural communities.
> 
> While these are low sales volume dealers. GM will be giving up a very big edge. Forcing rural customers into the big cities to purchase will open options like Toyota and Honda who are badly under represented in rural areas.
> 
> ...


Expect Fusion and F-150 sales to pick up then. Ford still has a presence in small towns, and their latest reliability numbers look pretty good.

Ford Fusion Reliability, Price Comparisons, Invoice Comparisons, and Specifications


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

> Historically I think the car makers always thought the only North Americans who bought small cars couldn't afford big ones, so if you want heated leather seats and climate control you would like to "move up" to a big vehicle


I think that in the US (and to a bit lesser extent in Canada), it is just part of a whole "bigger is better" mindset. It's how the US wound up with all of the Detroit land yachts, but it is reflected in everything from superstores with 400 choices of toothpaste to the startling obesity levels in the population. For some reason we've come to equate being able to over consume with success. 

It's understandable, but really needs to change for the good of our planet, if not our souls.

Now, HOW did I work that into an auto thread?


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## bsenka (Jan 27, 2009)

Local newspaper reports are that seven GM dealers are going to have their franchise revoked here in Manitoba. I thought that was a little high until I read further into the story, where it related that there are 33 GM dealers in Manitoba. For a population under a million. Seems to me that might be a big part of the problem, and that ONLY cutting 7 of them shows they're actually still not serious about turning things around.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

mc3251 said:


> I think that in the US (and to a bit lesser extent in Canada), it is just part of a whole "bigger is better" mindset. It's how the US wound up with all of the Detroit land yachts, but it is reflected in everything from superstores with 400 choices of toothpaste to the startling obesity levels in the population. For some reason we've come to equate being able to over consume with success.
> 
> It's understandable, but really needs to change for the good of our planet, if not our souls.


Michael: My feeling is that, while over-consumption probably leads to disease of the soul, our capacity to produce an amazing array of products and services is a testament to our success. I don't like to see companies legislated into offering less and people legislated into having less, or enjoying less through punitive taxation. There's plenty of room for people who want to drive a land yacht and those who want to drive electric Smart Cars. Better people should learn how to choose products and services that make them happier and healthier, instead of consuming recklessly without satisfying themselves.


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

PenguinBoy said:


> Agreed 100%, although this might be ~starting~ to change - cars like the A3 are now offered here.
> 
> Historically I think the car makers always thought the only North Americans who bought small cars couldn't afford big ones, so if you want heated leather seats and climate control you would like to "move up" to a big vehicle.
> 
> Europe is a different market with different tastes, it will be interesting to see how premium small cars catch on here. There might now be more people who don't want a huge vehicle for environmental or running cost reasons - but don't want to sit in an interior that looks like a Rubbermaid display at Wal*Mart...


Precisely. Even though cars like the A3 and the Mini are available. They are tremendously expensive. Minis are nice and all, but the thing starts at 23 grand. That seems a little bit high. Perhaps a starting of just below 20 and we are talking.

Nonetheless, GM still makes those rubbermaid box small cars. Like the Aveo. 

They really can't see the future when they think a $40,000 full sized, luxury hybrid car is going to save them.

The ponzi scheme is over, the Americans have realised that they are not nearly as wealthy as they thought. Few can afford a $40,000 car.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

Macfury said:


> Michael: My feeling is that, while over-consumption probably leads to disease of the soul, our capacity to produce an amazing array of products and services is a testament to our success. I don't like to see companies legislated into offering less and people legislated into having less, or enjoying less through punitive taxation. There's plenty of room for people who want to drive a land yacht and those who want to drive electric Smart Cars. Better people should learn how to choose products and services that make them happier and healthier, instead of consuming recklessly without satisfying themselves.


This is so well put. I actually agree and love the fact that we can create the "amazing array" as you call it. And while I agree that we shouldn't force companies or people into accepting less-I was thinking about how in some ways we need to redefine what we mean by "less". Traditionally and historically, less=smaller and more = bigger. Without trying to force things on anyone, I'd like to see that change. Smaller vehicles with a rich feature set that are comfortable and fun, as well as environmentally responsible and economical to operate is but one example. Bigger is better is really unhealthy, I think-from portions in restaurants and movie theatres to gigantic houses-it goes on and on. 

When we consume recklessly without satisfaction, we are living an addictive cycle, which is why I think is is soul sickening (plus hearts, arteries, and bank accounts).

This is a bit of a thread hijack-ah well-I am usually fairly well behaved.


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

I'd like to add the Acura CSX, example of another small luxury car.


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

dona83 said:


> I'd like to add the Acura CSX, example of another small luxury car.


I have a Civic, and it isn't that small. Compared to the cars outside of Canada and the US. Honda has better. 

The three door Civic that they sell elsewhere is small and fun! 










I drove that while I was in Spain last year. Incredible fun little car. I would trade up my Canadian Civic for that one.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

THIS ...I like



> *Can a billionaire car mogul save Saturn?*
> Updated Mon. Jun. 29 2009 11:10 AM ET
> 
> Michael Vaughan, Autos.CTV.ca
> ...


more

CTV.ca | Can a billionaire car mogul save Saturn?


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## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*GM's phony loan repayment*



> General Motors has been running ads on all the major networks claiming the company repaid its $6.7 billion U.S. government loan "with interest five years ahead of the original schedule." General Motors Company CEO Ed Whitacre can be seen in the ad walking through an auto plant as he touts the company's progress.
> 
> But lawmakers, and even the inspector general for the bailout fund GM borrowed from, point out that General Motors only repaid the bailout money by dipping into a separate pot of bailout money. They say the company did not actually use its own earnings to make the early payment and are questioning why executives are making such a big deal out of it.


(Crooks and Liars)


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## imactheknife (Aug 7, 2003)

go GM...you keep looking better and better


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