magicv8

I used to drive Hondas - when they were quality vehicles. After 4 - each one worse - I went back to Chevy and Pontiac and much more quality.

During this period I also became concerned about the jobs that will be out there for my children and grandchildren, so I worked on convincing my wife to give up her leaky Toyotas (all of them were bought new and seals replaced under warranty - only to leak again) and her Nissans (where electronics, brakes, and steering fall out of new cars in the first year) and drive a Pontiac (no problems).

I am driving my 25th car (not counting my wife's) and I am happier than ever with GM and my new Chevy.

Corbrastang

I guess it is all based on luck of the draw then.

Soonerjim

I work for a GM assembly plant. I own nothing but GM cars, but my loyalty is to the American worker, not the American company. I've told all my kids, the only way they should buy foreign, is if it is built by American workers. I still prefer total American, but I probably wouldn't disown them. To be honest most of Gm cars have numerous parts built in Mexico. During union negotiations, GM always threatens to take more production overseas. For instance, the GTO is built in Australia.

Soonerjim

By the way, the plant I work at, Had 6000 hourly employees 25 years ago, now it has 2700. Jim

tdelph

thats exactly my thoughts. Dont get me wrong I own american vehicles but there are many Toyotas and Nissans built right here in America...by Americans not anyone else. We have Americans building these cars everyday. Should we not buy a Chrysler anymore? The Germans own them...right? What about a Volvo? Doesnt Ford own that? Where is it built? Its not as cut and dried anymore. The World is much smaller and you dont have 100% American cars. Components and technology are from all over the World.

Seaside63

It would amaze people to learn how many computer and engineering jobs these "American" companies are outsourcing/offshoring to foreign countries.

Besides worrying about where the cars are assembled, we should also be worried about where they are designed, engineered, marketed and accounted for.

If America continues to send its Manufacturing, Engineering, Design, Computer and even Agricultural jobs overseas (or bringing cheap foreign labor over here) there soon won't be an America left.

As traditional Americans shrink into the center of the country, away from the coasts and metropolitan areas, they fool themselves into believing that the America of the early 20th century still exists.

While we argue over whether teenage girls can get an abortion without their parent's permission, hordes of millions in other countries are stripping us bare of the jobs that form our middle class and our entire economic foundation.

So, more than worrying about where your car comes from, we all should be worrying about where our jobs are going.

66rag427

I love the way these guys try to ease their guilty conscience by saying " I had to do it, it was far superior". When in fact they were just giving in to peer pressure. It's cool now to be anti American, just read any car magazine. I have looked at all the brands and and Japanese are NOT superior in any significant way.

When your children or grand children can't find a job that pays enough to make a living just call your Japanese friends I am sure they will help out. (They won't let us compete in their market...why???)

They have already lowered the standard. When I graduated from high school, a young man (without college) could get a job buy a house, car and raise a family on one job. Not today even for most college grads.

For that you can thank your Asian buddies. I would express this to the students in my college classroom. They looked at me as if I was from Mars. The facts will bear me out.

That's the real facts and I don'nt mind saying it. Thanks

Corbrastang

I'm a young college grad and I have a house, a job, and three cars. It all depends on what you make of yourself and how you compete and that will never change.
The truth is, there is NO CAR IN THE WORLD that is assembled or built entirely from components or materials manufactured within its own borders. Building cars is a global business, and the car companies buy materials and components from the best supplier no matter where he comes from or where he makes his product. Moreover, the car companies have joined together in many joint ventures so it's virtually impossible to determine the national "origin" of a car anymore.
Ford is heavily involved with Mazda, Jaguar, Aston Martin, Volvo and Land Rover. Chrysler and Mitsubishi are married. And GM is sleeping with Toyota. In Fremont, California, GM and Toyota build the Corolla/Prizm together. It's the same car, but under the Toyota name, it's called a Corolla, while it's a Prizm under GM's banner. Oddly enough, the Corolla is 76% of the sales. Somehow customers see the "foreign" brand as more desirable. Typical "American" names can also be misleading. The Mercury Grand Marquis and Ford Crown Victoria, for example, are assembled in Canada and even Mexico. Chrysler assembles its LHS, Concordes and 300Ms in Canada. GM assembles all of its Buick Regals, Chevy Camaros, Pontiac Firebirds and Chevy Luminas in Canada. On the other side of the coin, there are eight foreign companies that assemble cars in the U.S. for sale here.
Mitsubishi builds Eclipses and Galants at Normal, Ill. Toyota has a huge presence in America, building Camrys and Avalons in Georgetown, KY. Subaru builds Legacys in Lafayette, IN. Mazda (which is 25% owned by Ford) builds 626s in Flat Rock, MI. Honda builds Acuras, Civics, and Accords in Ohio. BMW builds Z3s in South Carolina. Nissan builds Altimas and Sentras in Tennessee. And Mercedes is building M Class vehicles in Alabama. These are all "American" cars even though they have foreign names. Just a couple of years ago, the German company of Daimler-Mercedes Benz bought Chrysler, now renamed Daimler-Chrysler, but the execs in charge at the top are German. Where's Lee Iaccoca when you need him! Interesting, don't you think? That the country that built the auto industry and put the world on wheels, now has only two auto manufacturers left--GM and Ford. While the Germans and Japanese, who we allegedly "defeated" in WW II, now have more factories in America than the Americans.

IMA 66

just throwing my two cents in here.....We just bought a 2005 Kia Sedona....this is the first foreign car in my immediate family that has ever entered our driveway......but out old minivan 99 Olds came down with some serious problems and i did not want the wife driving it and of course we owed more then we could get for it so.....it was basically the only thing we could afford to do right now and keep her and the kids in something nice. I would loved to have gotten a Chevy Venture or whatever they call that new ugly minivan but it was not an option. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do.....however i think what is far worse then people buying foreign products is companies shipping jobs overseas. I am sitting here at work typing this and no more then 20 feet from my office to the production floor are about 30 data entry workstations that are filled three shifts a day seven days a week. What these poor keyers don't know is that one of the main goals of the new system we are installing(also built by Indians) is that someone in India will be able to key the data off of a screen instead of the people sitting here now. To me this is just stupid!!!! We are going to be getting rid of people so the company can make a little more profit........I mean how much to these people need to make!!!!!! don't get me wrong, i am sure we all would like to make a little more but there has to be a point when to much is to much.....when you are getting multi million dollar bonuses on top of your multi million dollar salary..what can one person do with all that!!! The world is going down the toilet that's for sure!! I blame it all on overpaid athletes and rap music

Seaside63

AMERICA !!!

FOR SALE TO THE LOWEST BIDDER !!!

batmann

Stang,

I did the exact same thing. For me - it was between the Tacoma Quad or the Colorado Quad Cab....there is absolutely no comparison. I elected to buy a more expensive truck with less options. Why?...Quality, reputation, reliability, and resale.

Dave

batmann

Well - when you are addressing your crew you may want to explain to them why they WILL eventually loose thier jobs....cost, quality, reliabilty, and reputation...which all reflect the resale value.

I do not base my purchases on where a product is made...I base it on quality and the cost ratio to a sub-standard product. Would you be driving your Vette if it was made in Canada or Mexico...or even Japan? If not - then what - maybe a Mustang?

Here is another CURRENT example of OUR American quality...The Twin Cities Ford plant was shut down for over a week - due to control arms coming right off the train that were already cracked or broken..

C2IT

Wow! I had no idea what I was starting here

Brutal64: is it still sacrilegious if I use it to tow project Corvettes home?

I have flipped from GM to Ford for the last 15-20 years. I had a '93 Explorer for 6 years. Put 60K+ miles on it & all I ever did was change the oil and put a new battery in it. Wish I could say the same for the '99 Jimmy I just unloaded.

Oh yeah - Dodge sucks. I would never think of buying a Chrysler product.

Solid327

Basic economics:

The auto business is a mature industry in North America. There is excess capacity over need or demand. Unless the manufacturers build compelling products we just have to own, we can drive what we already have until it wears out. Cars last a heckeva lot longer than they used to and the age of the fleet here in the USA is relatively young.

If there is growth to be had, it will come from foreign markets outside of Europe, where both GM and Ford have operated for years. GM and Ford know that to grow and remain competitive in a global environment, they have to position themselves for the growth markets in Asia, (India and China). That means building cars there. It's likely that some of those cars will get exported to the USA. Better by GM or Ford, than an Asian or European car company who will also be operating there and competing for those markets. At least the profits come home.

Rising healthcare costs have hurt Ford and GM more in the USA, than the various foreign companies who build cars here. They also have huge pension and healthcare legacy costs from their retirees, due to UAW contracts previously negotiated. To offset that cost disadvantage, GM sources parts from their plants in Mexico, Brazil, and Canada, where healthcare, labor, tax treaties, and or, currency advantages offer them a savings advantage. By contrast, Toyota, Nissan, and Honda all have lower healthcare and legacy costs, and source the majority of their parts here in the USA. Many of their models are also designed and engineered here in the USA and are exported to other markets. That means jobs and investment in the USA, but the corporate profits go home. You can however, purchase stock in any of the Japanese automakers and participate in their fortunes, good or bad. The shares trade as ADR's on the NYSE.

UAW hourly workers contibute less than 10% of their healthcare costs, while the average American worker contributes almost 30%. Rising healthcare costs are part of the reason companies from all industries are exporting jobs overseas. Even your credit card company likely has call center workers in India, rather than Anytown, USA. You can see this problem is not unique to the domestic auto industry.

Rising litigation costs is part of the reason that healthcare costs are rising faster than inflation and that also ties over into the high costs of pharmaceuticals. Tort reform is badly needed. However, since the lawyer's lobby speaks louder than we do, and since the majority of legislators are lawyers, (who may return to private practice someday) it is unlikely that much progress will be made on this front.

Technology marches on and automation technology has replaced probably as many, or more, manufacturing jobs than have been lost to foreign workers. Technology has also contributed to improved quality and performance in the end product.

I have a Chevy truck, a Corvette and two Japanese cars. When we buy our next car it will be a GM product. It may be a Cadillac (CTS), or a Chevy ('06 Impala V-8 SS) and I also plan to look at and drive the Saab 9-3 Aero (GM owned) and the Subaru Legacy GT AWD (partially GM owned).

Buy what you want, expect and demand value for your dollars spent. GM builds the best pick up trucks, as demonstrated by resale value and percentage still in use. Everyone I know who has a Duramax diesel loves it. Very quiet and very strong and in case you didn't already know it, that engine was jointly engineered with Isuzu for GM.

norvalwilhelm

I drive a dodge 4x4 and like it. Drove a Ford F150 before this and liked it even better.

Seaside63

Makes me wonder why Corporate America is against National Health Care ?

Every other major industrialized nation in the world, beside the United States, has National Health Care.

Health care in the U.S. has been traditionally funded by the employers of "regular" employees. Or self funded for contract workers and self-employed.

This is a huge cost that does hurt the American Woker's competitiveness.

The major thing that Corporate America fails to consider is that American workers are raising their families on the American economy. We are paying American prices for our houses, food, CARS, and everything else that makes life in America what it is.

EVENTUALLY, American consumers will no longer be able to buy the products offered by these corporations and on THAT DAY, people will realize what a mess they have created.

Seaside63

I remember in 1997 having lunch with a couple of $300/hour Price Waterhouse consultants where they argued with me that Auto Workers did not DESERVE to earn $16 an hour "just for screwing hubcaps onto cars." !!!

Man, I went livid !

Soonerjim

I promise you if GM got the unions to make concessions in benefits, it wouldn't lower the prices of its cars. GM would just make more money for its Execs bonuses. We were told that for every car that rolled off this line, GM made a profit of 11,000. That is in the neighborhood of seven million a day, just at this plant. I also think that you'll find that the quality of GM autos is just as good as anybodies. Quality isn't our problem, its design. The plant I work at, Spent several years working on the sliding top Envoy. No telling how many billions was spent on the design, tooling of it. The XUV its called is probably one of the biggest flops since the Edsel. The popular argument is to blame GM problems on the high cost of labor. That terrible design would have paid for a whole bunch of labor. Sorry about the rambling, but this is a bit of a sore spot with me.

Solid327

Corporate America is NOT against National healthcare, at least not the domestic automakers. They would love to transfer their costs to the Federal Government. Problem is, the cost and efficiency of healthcare wouldn't go down, in fact, it would likely go up when encumbered by the bureaucracy of the new Federal agency to whom control would be given. GM is the largest consumer of healthcare in the US. If you think the government can do it more efficiently for all of us, than GM can for it's employees, you are mistaken. The end result is the cost would be transferred to the Federal government and we would all pay. Read our constitution, it is not the Federal government's responsibility to provide cradle to grave healthcare for it's citizen's.

Liability lawsuits and the resulting fallout down the line have put healthcare costs thru the roof and have also driven essential, but low profit, vaccine production completely out of the country. Remember last fall's flu vacine shortage?

Truth be told, GM doesn't make any money from manufacturing these days. The "profits" come from GMAC and the financial services they provide. GM's board decides what GM execs make and GM's shareholders wouldn't stand for big bonuses being paid when the share price is dropping. GM has to pay a competitive executive rate to hire talent. They don't pay any more or less than any other automaker. I agree though, that corporate executive salaries have gone thru the roof during the stock market rally enjoyed in the 80's-90's BUT not without shareholder and board approval.

The example you gave of the sliding top Envoy XUV is not entirely accurate. Billions weren't spent to develop this edition, just millions. I wouldn't blame this vehicle's slow sales on design, though admittedly it's ungainly looking next to the attractive shorter wheelbase version without a sliding roof. Price is the problem, who needs or wants to spend upwards of $50K on a sliding roof SUV? Same goes for the 4 wheel steering option GMC offered on their trucks. Too much money, again it's price not design.

As far as the GM car line ups go, design is a problem. Only a few attractive 4 passenger sedans and no sexy youth market "tuner" cars to begin to build memories and brand loyalty. Boring is the key word here. Why? I don't know. Maybe the Lutz vehicles now in the pipeline will change that. Also Mark LeNeve, Cadillac's former GM has been given broader responsibilities to help get the other brands heated up. I'm optimistic GM will turn things around. The UAW and their GM workers need to get on the same page. It shouldn't be an adversarial relationship.

Soonerjim

How can it not be adversarial, when all the problems are blamed on the hourly workers. You said it yourself, when you said all the uaw, and their union workers need to get on the same page. Does that mean we should just fall in line like good soldiers. The union workers number about half of what it was 20 years ago. If we get on the same page as the management, another twenty years may bring no more american built cars. We were told the other day, that 30% of all GM cars coming off the line, are bought by GM workers, and their families. The lost of market, is not our fault.