Saving the US Auto Industry

[xoxoxoBruce]

OK, I need a pickup and I want a convertible. Make your recommendation for a convertible pickup.

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

OK, I need a pickup and I want a convertible. Make your recommendation for a convertible pickup.

You could have done the research. What were response sources recommending by using facts and numbers? And what year?

[monster]

Originally Posted by tw

Good part companies will simply make more parts for productive companies that actually let engineers do designing. Those who cannot meet fundamental quality concepts (that are required by the better auto companies) will die.

right.

You have no idea about this business, do you?

Most parts companies make parts for all manufacturers. Not just the select few who meet your "good" criteria. they do their job and they do it well, but they haven't been paid for a while. By good and bad auto companies alike. Because when the bad ones don't pay, the good ones say "well why should we pay either?" And once the debtors go into chapter 11, they're protected.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by tw

You could have done the research. What were response sources recommending by using facts and numbers? And what year?

I did the research. There was only one, Chevy. I bought it and I love it. Maybe I should put magnetic flags all over it so my neighbors think I'm patriotic, ya think?

[tw]

Originally Posted by monster

Most parts companies make parts for all manufacturers. Not just the select few who meet your "good" criteria.

Those manufacturers manufactures will (in the future) be making more of better parts for better cars. If Chrysler disappears, the manufacturers make more those other parts for other companies.

Meanwhile, yes, many part companies must disappear. The time to avoid this problem was four, ten, and twenty years ago. Those who foolishly could only sell to GM (who did not go through a process of earning the right to sell to Toyota, et al) probably will go under. But time to have worried about this was many years ago when the problem was obvious.

My sympathies to a part company president who sat next to me and said, "GM will show me how to cut my costs." But then, his own statement should have (and hopefully) told him to start making parts for better companies.

We have all suffered because, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter." So we voted the idiots back in office rather than fix the problem. Bankruptcies today could only have been averted back then - fundamental economics. Now many companies must go under.

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I did the research. There was only one, Chevy. I bought it and I love it.

Worst of the worst 1999 to 2008 includes Chevy Colorado, Chevy S-10, and Chevy Blazer. Used cars to avoid for obvious reasons: 04-07 Chevy Colorado, numerous 99-08 Silverados, most all Suburbans, and 99-04 S-10s.

Among the various used trucks that remains reliable and recommend are the Ford F-150, F-250, and some Rangers. Of course, the world knows where better pickups are found - Toyota. Chevy trucks are so poor as to all but not be exportable.

Meanwhile reliablity of Chevy trucks show numerous below average and well below average ratings especially for their suspensions, body integrity and drive train.

Meanwhile consistently well above average are Fords with brakes being the only weakness. Or even much better are all Toyota trucks with virtually nothing below average.

Kind of obvious why GM cannot make money and why GM started dumping warranty costs back on the dealers again. Research does not say anything particular good about Chevy trucks.

Oh. And those Chevy pickups have such poor performance as to only average 14 and 16 MPG. Hell, even 6 liter Ford V-8s in the 1960s did better than that. Those numbers contradict your feelings. Which should we believe?

Those numbers also explain why buying a Chevy pickup years ago means more workers must lose their jobs today.

[classicman]

Good for you Bruce - As one of the MILLIONS of satisfied & loyal customers of American car manufacturers, I am sure that every hard working individuals who was involved in the process thanks you.

[sugarpop]

I wouldn't buy an American POS car if they paid me to. Unless it was a Tesla, but I don't believe they make them in America. At least when you buy Toyotas they are being made here, by American workers.

[tw]

Excerpts from the NY Times of 27 Apr 2009:

G.M.’s Latest Plan Envisions a Much Smaller Automaker
G.M. said it would have to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection unless 90 percent of the vast bondholder group accepted the terms by June 1. ...

If bondholders approve the debt-for-equity exchange, they would own about 10 percent of G.M., making them a minority shareholder in a company controlled by the Treasury and the U.A.W.’s retiree trust. ...

Representative Thaddeus McCotter ... is urging the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, to disclose which G.M. bondholders have default swaps from the American International Group, the insurance company that was bailed out by the government.

As if these stories don't get complex enough. A new twist. Rather than agree to a swap of bonds for common stock, many bondholders with Credit Default Swaps from AIG can do better if GM goes bankrupt.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by tw

Those numbers contradict your feelings. Which should we believe?

And which ones were convertibles?

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Griff

Picture this, GM sold off piece by piece and busted into half a dozen small innovative car companies building the cars people want and need. Let it fail.

This alternative seems to be the most viable. Weren't they smaller car companies to begin with who were then acquired and put into the huge megacorp that is now GM?
Bust it up and let the strong survive.

[tw]

Originally Posted by classicman

This alternative seems to be the most viable. ... Bust it up and let the strong survive.

GM intentionally restructured itself to make any breakup as difficult as possible. For example, all engineering was removed from the divisions. Many assembly plants were reconstituted into General Motors Assembly Division so that a breakup would be most difficult. It was done at the highest levels of GM management. Statements from many now retired GM executives.

How does one sell off Pontiac when their cars are made on the same assembly lines as Buicks and Chevys? Just one example.

Meanwhile a breakup does nothing to solve the problem. For example, too many platforms. VW does all models with only 3 platforms. Last I saw, GM had at least 13 platforms - I suspect that number is higher. GM even makes three different intermediate sized cars that don't share even one part. That is one problem.

Any solution (ie breakup) must solve these problems. Problems include too many platforms, built in factories that still are not flex type, using obsolete technologies (as some technologies were obsolete even 20 years ago), without management that comes from where the work gets done, and too many layers of management, in an industry that already has enough other companies that make superior products.

A breakup would not solve even one of those problems. GM wants to sell Hummer, Saturn, Pontiac, and Saab. Only Saab might sell. Nobody can make money on the other three. To sell them, GM would have to include guarantees (just like Mercedes did to sell Chrysler to Cerebus). GM would not provide guarantees to operations that would inevitably fail.

Best money comes from breaking down the factories and selling off the machines. GM is worth more in disassembled pieces than the entire company combined because it product designs are that inferior. For example, Telsa might be in the market for sections of a GM assembly line - to assemble their product in CA. It was one thing DeLorean desperately needed and could not get - used standard technology assembly line equipment.

Time to save Pontiac, Saturn, et al was back in 1991 when the spread sheets said GM was this bad. Instead, bean counters played money games for almost 20 years (and did not fix the problems). So economics takes revenge. Those divisions are worth only the equipment on factory floors. Since America must sell off things to pay of massive debts, that used equipment is best sold overseas.

Same occured in the mid and late 1970s.

[dar512]

Originally Posted by tw

How does one sell off Pontiac when their cars are made on the same assembly lines as Buicks and Chevys? Just one example.

You're behind the times, dub.

General Motors will phase out the Pontiac brand in 2010, said Fritz Henderson.

[tw]

Originally Posted by dar512

You're behind the times, dub.
General Motors will in 2010, said Fritz Henderson.

Actually I posted that last Friday (four days ago). And that latest post says the same thing.

GM has two options. Sell Pontiac or sell off its pieces. Obviously, nobody will buy Pontiac (for reasons provided). So GM must 'phase out' Pontiac as defined previously. That means selling off factories only for their machines.

Meanwhile, view the numbers for that G8. The V-6 is a 70 Hp per liter engine. The V-8s are still paltry less thans. So Pontiac finally has a car doing same or less than what was world standard in the 1990s. Meanwhile, new many products from patriotic companies are now doing 80 hp per liter standard. But again, the numbers say why Pontiac must go. Their newest product is still over 10 years behind the competition.

[classicman]

Packaging factories or plants along with certain auto lines is another viable option that has been explored.

Pontiac should have never been "saved" it should have been taken out back and shot back in the 80's. GM has been producing multiples of the same car with a different name on it for years, decades. So has Ford and Chrysler. Why is there a Mercury brand? Same answer - they should have stopped producing these same cars with different names decades ago. It was a failed business plan. People just aren't as stupid as that anymore and the availability of and better designed/longer lasting foreign cars compounded the problem. Playing off the American spirit only lasted so long and that time has come and gone.