Feelings about GM

GM and Ford are good with trucks. I dont think there is any significant doubt here. They sell the hell out of them and in general these are the best products of both companies. The have some specialized winners in auto's but essentially they have ceded this market to the transplants 20 yrs ago. It's almost impossible to get these buyers back now.

IMO if they downsize to truck companies with small auto divisions they will be profitable..... BUT... highly vulnerable to fuel spikes and disruptions. Now if they go full force into diesel before Toyota and Nissan get there they have a good potential. But let Toyota and Nissan get there and even the cash cow Big Rigs are going to be vulnerable.

BTW I doubt that Toyota is building a 200K+ unit plant on the 'hope' of filling it.

 

I assure you the battle-lines are drawn. So far Toyota is 0-2 on full-size truck launches. If they go 0-3 it will affect the rest of their portfolio. It will be interesting to see how their venture into NASCAR goes? I see it soiling their image with their base owners and venturing into a 'hostile' market to say the least. Momentum is so important in everything and Toyota has had it for 15 years. It will be interesting to see how they react when the ol' 'mojo' is in reverse. They will be trying to walk a very tight rope! Very difficult to be the 'green' car company, 'tough' truck company and run in NASCAR!

 

Good luck.

 

Good choice Mr Sheeple.

 

Well, malorn, I did check out the article and it sure is interesting how two people can read the same words and come out with two different opinions.

Yes, he was very complimentary to the new Buick Lucerne. Obvious jokes come to mind since Lucerne is a popular dairy brand around here...one of which being that the Lucerne sounds definitely bovine.

A 44-foot turning radius? Jeez...I'd hardly be able to park the damn thing around L.A.!

Healy praises the power but admits that the standard V-6 is less powerful and more gas hungry than Toyota's, and recommends moving up to the V-8 and premium fuel!

If this is your or GM's idea of tackling Toyota head-on, I'd be holding off on that stock buy until the fire sale and an impending government bail-out.

BTW, from today's L.A. Times:

Full text here.

I honestly don't wish GM any ill, but I don't see any cause for optimism that they'll get on track any time soon.

Jan

 

I think GM will recover. They've got some nice new products out, and they have some Hybrids coming out soon as well. The HHR is a pretty nice car. They are big, and change takes time. But I think they are starting to realize that not every American consumer wants to drive something that can pull a yacht and go 0-60 in 8 seconds.

I think the cylinder turnoff concept that GM is coming out with is long overdue. I think you'll see their truck lines earn back a bit of respect, and their new cars too if they can hold up over time. That's the biggest thing for me, ability to trust that my car will not break down on me, regardless of my numerous trips to Blacksburg for football games.

 

I hope GM recovers, and they probably will, probably as a smaller and leaner company. GM has lots of employees and is a major American company. Our economy as a whole suffers anytime a huge company folds.

That said, propping up a failing company doesn't do anyone any good. GMs survival is up to GM. I won't buy their products unless they're competive, no matter how much I want them to survive.

 

Did you mean the 2000 MT TOTY Tundra which is CR's best value for 2005? That failure? It was like the Gen1 Prius a first step. See what the market reaction is and then go full force into the heart of the market.

Ill give them a 'push' on the Gen1 Tundra. It was better built but smaller and less capable than the GM/F models.

For the Gen2.. see for yourself tomorrow at 9AM in Chicago. It will be the largest non-commercial truck on the road. Period. 5._? L engine with a Turbo diesel on the horizon and likely a Hybrid version soon. But it will be a tough battle. GM/F 's are well entrenched with good products.

NASCAR? who cares.. that's like the WWF.. old news. Even if the Camry won every race I wouldnt be able to stay awake longer than the first lap.

 

John O'Dell

 

You couldn't have picked a better forum. None of the regular posters here have the fanboy mentality. Sure, there's a bunch of debates, but mostly based on facts, not bias.

Keywords: "regular posters"

 

Not as far as I know. He did write critically of GM, and they used their advertising clout to pass on 'concerns' to the newspaper.

In simple language: GM threatened to pull advertising if the LA Times allowed O'neill free reign of his opinions. No lies, no libel -- jsut very unflattering writing. Course, by now I think GM is used to it.

 

GM? again? yawn...

my husband and i were GM people... until his saturn died for like the 4th time... timing chain freaked, busted up a bunch of stuff in the engine, and after buying a new head, all associated gaskets, etc, etc, etc, for hundreds of dollars we didn't really have at the time... and DH spending all his free time fixing it for weeks, the oil pump died and seized up the engine. complete loss.

he got an 87 toyota- sympathy/helping hand from his stepdad. he didn't really like the idea of driving an import. but he did, we couldn't afford anything else- after all we owed nearly $1000 on a dead saturn and could barely make the payments after all those repairs wasted.

he drive it for a week and swore he'd never drive anything else again.

now, 4 years later he fixes toyotas for a living. his job at toyota meant we could afford a prius when my 120k, 14 year old buick decided to go to hell. he's now on his second 87 camry, not because the first one died, no no. the body rusted out to the point of being not structurally sound. the car was 17 years old, driven in wisconsin all that time, rarely washed.

he saved the engine. has really close to 300k miles on it. he's rebuilding it and will put the overhauled engine in his current car. will probably get another 5 years out of the car before we decide to trade up.

140k saturn: dead. 120k buick: last legs. near-300k toyota: still ticking, even before the rebuild it runs better than either of those GM engines.

tell me, what would you gather i think about GM?

 

This is a terrible thing. A once proud company biting the dust because management, whose golded parachutes are just fine thank you, is worried about their options pricing that the whole company goes belly up. Bob Luzt SHAME!!

 

I tend to think what is more true has to do with engines. Back in the day when GM had engineering expertise that ran the company rather than marketing, they came up with excellent V8 engines. Down the road they devised good but not great V6 engines. For the past three decades they have been living off that intellectual capital.

Stuffing the large engines into small cars, and selling the 'muscle' car worked in the 1970's.
Stuffing the V8 into trucks and selling the SUV worked through the 1990's.

But now the 4 Cyl is ascendant king, and GM cannot compete in that arena. Malorn keeps hoping that GM will rule the truck/SUV nest, but that nest is going to shrink to a small fraction of its current size. GM is dead in the water in the V6 market as well, because 4 Cyl hybrids will take it over. IMO GM's fixed costs are too great to allow them to survive as a niche company.

 

It's a nice thought but it will never happen.

 

I don't like GM (gee, what a suprise). If they built a good product I would like them, but they don't. GM always seems to find a way to screw up anything (see signature), the HHR may look nice, but it still has that cheap plastic look to it. They should stick to making trucks and commercial vehicles. However, there is hope for Ford. If anything, the Time interview with Bill Ford is proof of that.