Stay away from GM in its death spiral

Please, I beg of you, don't anyone tell malorn about this.

 

How could we tell him? We can't even find him!

 

I've always "drove American," but it's things like this that made me decide my first new car would be a, well, you know...

 

As we were discussing in another thread, now you can get some really good financing deals on those big trucks and SUVs - 0% interest for 60 and sometimes even 72 mos. Lots of vehicles to choose from too, the only problem is you won't be able to afford to buy the gas to drive them anywhere.

 

Never fear.

Pontiac tries high-performance revival.

No. They'll never learn.

 

Buy buy buy these cars to help the Australian economy. The Holden factory where these cars are built is in Elizabeth, a northern suburb of Adelaide. I don't think the Commodore is a huge car by US standards. I drive a Commodore for my work car. The car being exported to USA is a top shelf product so if you or anyone you know is in the market for a high performance 4 door sedan (for towing the boat they might get in a couple of years) or a great 2 door utility then the Pontiac G8 is as good as you will find. Rest assured that this car will sell in the USA for well below the price it sells for here in Australia.

The early 2000s Pontiac GTO was the Holden Monaro, again built in Elizabeth, South Australia. There is a 2 door on the drawing board right now so that may come your way also.

Adelaide has just suffered a blow to its car manufacturing industry with the announced closure of Mitsubishi's Tonsley Park (8km from my house) factory after the failure of the 380 model to revive the companies fortunes in Australia. The 380 is a 3.8 litre V6 front wheel drive large sedan. Australians prefer their large cars in rear wheel drive, well except when they are a quality product like a Camry. Actually the 380 was a very good big car but the weakness of Mitsubishi in Australia was a major stumbling block. Early Mitsubishi Magna models were knowns as smoking heaps of s***.

 

To put the spin on for malorn:

"Wahh, it's all Toyota's fault . . . we need to ban imports, so the U.S. will be forced to buy GM products . . . buy American, and quit looking at the "Made in Mexico" sticker under the hood, it's STILL American, as long as we have a Flag waving advertising scheem, and as long as our Corporate board is from the U.S. ... buy our products or the U.S. will be doomed ... come on now, pick up your flag and wave it."

 

GM's attempts at building a small, fuel-efficient car have almost always been half-assed. Their first attempt, the Corvair, actually wouldn't have been so bad except GM made the conscious decision to save a few bucks by omitting a critical suspension part, a rear anti-sway bar, which wound up making the car's handling unacceptably dangerous. They'd fix it a few years later but by then, the damage was done.

They then followed up with the Vega, GM's first 'corporate' car, one of the worst cars (small or otherwise) ever produced in history.

Ironically, the GM CEO who is reviled as one of the worst and largely at the core of GM's problems today, Roger Smith, also made one of the most valiant attempts at producing a legitimate competitor to the small, efficient, reliable Japanese car in the Saturn. But, eventually, that plan failed, too, thanks to GM's neglect and concentration on high-profit, large vehicles.

Today, Saturn is just another GM division with all the same maladies and hide-bound failings as the old, established GM brands. In fact, if it weren't for skyrocketing gas prices, I would imagine that Saturn would have soon gotten their very own, large, inefficient, gas-guzzling, high-profit version of the vehicles of all the other divisions.

At one point, when Hummer sales were going gangbusters, there was even rumors of GM spinning off a version using the Studebaker brand name. Imagine a Saturn Studebaker version of the Hummer...

 

hey wait now, my spanking brand-new Vega was one of my nicest cars. I loved it. Then, it hit 13,000 miles . . . lucky 13 . . . sigh. That said, it does have comic value (in a laurel & hardy - train wreck sort of way) to hear the title 'death spiral' ... but I do have hopes for GM in spite of their leaders. Once they finally get rid of those failures, Lutz & Wagner they can turn things around ... but it's like getting rid of Noriega, or Castro, or Marcos ... the impowered ego crazed inept refuse to let go.

 

I think one of GMs biggest problems in trying to recover is that they have burned a lot of goodwill by putting out substandard products over many decades. So even if they produce some good high mileage cars, people like myself will stay away because we remember the Vega, the Monza, the Fiero, et. al.

Plus every time I get into a GM rental car, I have a negative reaction to the interior.

Don't ask me to explain it, I'm just being honest about my prejudice against GM vehicles.

 

Toyota to Cut Pickup Production at 2 U.S. Plants

Not only GM's large gus guzzling Trucks and SUV's, Toyota has to refocus
its marketing strategy as well.

Tokyo, Mar 14, 2008 (Jiji Press) - Toyota Motor Corp. <7203> will start reining in production of pickup trucks at its Texas and Indiana plants due to sluggish sales amid high gasoline prices and a slowdown in the U.S. economy, officials said Thursday.

Toyota will disclose its production adjustment plan, to be implemented in late spring, to employees at the two plants and suppliers by the end of this week, the officials said.

Toyota will curb the production of the Tundra pickup truck, manufactured at both plants, as well as the Sequoia sport-utility vehicle, assembled at the Indiana plant.

The top Japanese automaker will consider whether to expand the scope of production adjustment by monitoring developments in the U.S. automobile market. The firm has no immediate plan to lay off employees.


By Jiji Press, (c) Jiji Press

 

Anybody have a time machine I can borrow? I STILL kick myself for not putting more of my investment portfolio into gold and oil, back in the mid 1990's.

 

At least GM and Toyota USA can move into higher production of smaller models because they make smaller models. Here in Oz, General Motors Holden and Ford only make big cars so they are pretty well stuck doing what they are doing.

Holden will remember the late 70s when they made the Commodore after the Kingswood. The Commodore was about 4 inches smaller length and width and they lost market share to Ford who continued with big cars. The fact Holden still used the same big pushrod engines didn't help. Then they developed a 4 cylinder engine which was so bad it seemed like they intentionally failed. The 4 cylinder engine was the same as the 6 cylinder engine with 2 cylinders removed! It was harsh and had little power. Unbelievably Toyota Aust fitted the engine to some Coronas to boost Australian content although the Toyota version was much smoother without the Variajet carburettor of the Holden.

 

Gee, you forgot such greats as the Chevette, GEO Metro, anything GM has made after 1972, the Citation and more. Then factor in ANYTHING made by Ford; and Chrysler's worthless transmissions and it's not too difficult to understand how the American public was DRIVEN to buy Japanese.

 

All the way to 13k miles, huh? I once saw a pristine light blue 1972 Vega 2-door hatchback at a car show. Now there's a rare car. One of my favorite 'inside' stories about the design of the Vega was the reason it had screw-in terminals on the front side of the batteries. I always wondered about the rationale for that and discovered when I read DeLorean's book On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors that it was so the cars could be shipped by rail in a vertical storage position (on their rear bumpers). That explains why that car was such a piece of crap. Everything about its design was thought out in terms of minimizing cost of production and shipping to maximize profit, with absolutely no consideration given to service life after the sale. Like I said, GM's first 'corporate' car.

The thing about it is, for decades, even the most reliable GM cars (like, say, the Impala) were only mediocre, at best, in comparison to what the Japanese were selling. That kind of quality control stays in consumer's memories for a long time, especially when they get burned with a bad vehicle more than a few times. Detroit (and GM, in particular) has always had an entrenched, upper management culture of the country club, golf playing, old boy network that perpetuates short-term thinking and has simply never gone away. I'm not sure Detroit is capable of changing dramatically enough to save themselves.

I've owned lots of Detroit iron through the years, as well as a few Toyotas. I've always gotten rid of everything after a year or two, except for the Toyotas. Everything else has had some niggling problem that eventually made it easy to trade off. The Toyotas never had any kind of problem so it was hard to come up with a reason, even a small one, for me to trade them off.

Like now, someone recently asked me if I was due to trade my 2006 Prius in on something else. I probably would, except there's just nothing wrong with the Prius and gas prices are too high to seriously consider it. The few negative things I find on the Prius (no sunroof option, night-time instrument glare on the windshield, no automatic door locks) just aren't enough (although I will admit that next year's next generation Honda Fit might be intriguing if there's a hybrid version).

But something from Detroit (like the Volt)? No way.

 

So Pontiacs are Australian! Go figure. The cupholders should be big enough to hold a Foster's and the OnStar should sound like Crocodile Dundee. G'day, mate.

 

One of the things especially annoying about GM is that EVERY one of their resonably priced cars is clearly inferior to the competition. So - as a car buyer - you KNOW if you buy GM - you're not buying the best car for the money. Many if not most of us would like to buy American. But GM continues to insist on making us feel like abject fools if we end up buying one of their cars - and those of us that bought GM cars know what I'm talking about. It's baffling why GM doesn't at least attempt to offer the best car in at least one market segment. Granted, the new Malibu appears to be a pretty good car - but still looks to be inferior to a Camry or Accord (or Fusion).

 

This is actually by design. GM (and Ford and Chrysler) gave up trying to compete head-on with the Japanese years ago. Their primary market for cars is now fleet/rental sales so they don't have to put forth their best effort. Cheap, low-grade materials make for higher profits and no one in the rental/fleet market is going to care. They figure they can snow enough civilian suckers with slick marketing and advertising to make up the rest.

 

The new Malibu is a bright spot for GM. The cost makes up for it not being quite as good as the Camry. If I wanted a car that size and had less money I would buy the 4cly Malibu. In reality I would want the Camry hybrid as its a much better car. Its just 50% more money.

The Corvette is also well engineered and a world beating car. They sell for list price most of the time and don't sit on the lot for long.

The Aveo sucks and is junk when compared to the Toyota and Honda offerings. Its not made here so its not like you are 'buying american' anyhow.

GM needs to make a cobolt/civic sized car that is made in the USA and designed well. It has a new advantage over its foreign rivals, the cheap dollar. I doubt it will use that advantage well.