GM and Chrylser to merge?!

I read an article a few months back in R&C, I think, talking about this before this was in the news. Neither of these companies are run by car guys. The designers are college "artsy" dudes (Dude [dood] a man excessively concerned with his clothes, grooming, and manners.) The days of Harley Earl are over. GM (GMAC) and MOPAR (cerberus) are only worried about the bottom line. Hey Guys, most of what you make is CRAP. These car companies don't just have the parts made overseas they aren't thinking American in the design. 22 Cup holders, DVDs, kid friendly POS Soccer Mom Assault Vehicles are what we're known for.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>
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Jeep is a success because it is a capable off road vehicle. Jeep guys love their Jeeps and the manufacture listens to them. It is known around the world for its ability and the aftermarket is HUGE. Jeep is Coca-Cola and Levi's, an American Brand that is timeless (GM and MOPAR keep trying to pour "New Coke" down our throats). <o></o>
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Carroll Shelby for President!<o></o>

 

I stopped by the dealer last night. Took a look at the US content of the GMC full size trucks, 85%. Pontiac G8, 7%. The G8 is made in Australia. It's a niche car and not targeted for the masses in the US. It is however one of the largest sellling platforms for GM worldwide.
Eveybody keeps saying all that is built is crap.... Why is it that engines of the 50s and a 60s especially the performance engines were used up in far less than 100k. My 92 Olds 88 with the 3800 V6 used no oil, performed well and I sold the car with 236K miles on it to a kid that is still driving it 4 years later. My Aurora with it's 250HP V8 has 161k miles and runs super. The car is nearly 12 years old and could pass for a new one. Interior looks great, outside great. Gets 29-30 MPG at 70 MPH Seats 5. Hey, don't get me wrong here. The cars all Manufactures make are different from what we liked and bought for "back in the day" but those days are gone and won't return.
Loved my 67 442. Motor was used up at 75k miles and sucked oil..... IT was designed that way. Rusted through at the quarters and ft. doglegs and was 8 years old.
Olds had a way fo producing an engine that ran like a raped ape but limited it's life expectancy in the 60s

 

I just learned today that Gm is closing the Janesvill Wis plant also one in Mich. also Frieghtliner is moving it Portland Oregon plant to Mexico. Where and when will this all end? Is there anything that can or should be done? Oldwolf

 

Oh ... I thought this thread was about this HAMB-friendly truck:

 

GM does own Toyota. a Geo prizim and Toyota Corolla are the same exact car, Toyota had plants in america they are now "Domestic", They are even in NASCAR!!

 

GM does not own toyota.

 

A company is owned by shareholders. Management is hired help (whether they earn an honest wage or not). The template is created by engineers and designers. The men and women who make the parts and assemble them give automobiles their souls. And those of us who buy them worship at the gasoline pump, or whatever orifice the power for the motor or engine is drawn from. Brand is value added. It comes from how the product performs, and how it can be sold within those parameters (and we usually get the gristle when they sell us they sizzle). For most of us, the old adage 'what wins on Sunday sells on Monday' will still be true whether our sole operator controlled wheeled transportation device uses electricity, gasoline, alcohol, hydrogen, or has a miniature nuclear reactor. Fuse the departments of these two major automobile manufacturers, and give them strong management, incentives to create a superior product, and use a cattle probe on the Union reps and you might succeed in a marketplace defined not by speed or quickness or sex appeal but by ergonomics and mileage per unit of energy. The solution to a problem is in defining the problem first, then thinking outside the box and using inspiration and creativity to simplify the equation of goal versus means. Interestingly, the hemispherical head was around before Mopar brought it into use as a production line option for automobiles. Peugot had a pent roof design in production about seventy years before Harry Miller created what was eventually called the Offy. Of course those were dual overhead cam engines. The real whammy to the Mopar guy who think a Russian designed the smallblock should remember Zora Arkus Duntov and his brother also created the Ardun head. And, if I remember what I learned on the playground at school, a Hemi ain't nothing but an Ardun head stuck on a Studebaker short block. Some people see a half full glass if they merge. I always hope for the best, otherwise I wouldn't have stuck with flatheads until I was old enough to know better. It's all in your mind, they tell me. Smokey Yunick said it best, "An engine doesn't know what name that's on it." And, folks if he could make all of 'em scream, so can some of these boys coming over for lunch from the other side of the Big Three Curtain. The main thing has already been said. Made in USA should be job Number One. Now who said that?

 

Although I'd imagine they wish they did.


The only reason that keeping American car companies afloat is important is in the off chance we ever should get involved in a real serious war, someone's going to need to build the tanks, planes and weapons we'll need to fight it, just like in WWII. Free trade is great, but sometimes it's a little too free, and Chinese tanks and middle eastern oil are going to be pretty useless in a war against either one. As in a WWII scale war, that is, Iraq is pretty small scale in comparison and only being dragged out so people can rake in the bucks at taxpayer expense. No disrespect to the guys who have to actually be over there.

 

i agree whith whitewalltires ..

i have a 95 blazer i have to work on all the time and a 86 nissan that all i have to do is put gas in it 25 years old and gets 30 mpg wtf ???

a 07 chevy been back to the dealer 2 times and know there is a damn pully maken noise made in mexico ? i hope they go under ...

 

"Hope they go under"... Sounds great.
266,000 of your friends an neighbors lose their jobs.
That would really be swell.

The TRUE quallity difference between a GM, Ford or Chrysler and Toyota, Nissan or Honda is only a couple discrepancies per 1000 vehicles. That's in the range of .2 - .5% Look it up at JDP or auditors.

 

Or we could commandeer the domestic toyota plants and build high quality, efficient tanks J/K on the last part. Although they would probably have a twist n pull ebrake.

 

not to name drop, but if youre really interested in where the car industry is headed in the states and around the world in general, then check out :
www.thetruthaboutcars.com.

from everything they report both chrysler and gm are dead companies walking. no amount of bailout could save them now, including creating an "american leyland". i say that because it would resemble what the u.k. did back in the 70's when their automotive industry was in the dirt.

just today it was reported that gm will no longer offer financing on cars through gmac to anyone with less than stellar credit. in fact they offer 1% bonuses to dealers who will sell cars through "other" financing anymore. gmac itself is 51% owned by cerebrus, the same private equity company who owns 80% of chrysler. at current they are shopping for anybody to dump both entities on. just like most private equity companies do. you know..buy it, pump it, blow it up, sell the chunks off.

neither company can get money to finsh the year and what they have in holdings have been sold off sometime ago by the execs and managers to make the company appear to be more profittable, on paper anyways. that way they get their big checks. so this means they have to burn through savings which is hard to do, because they HAVE to spend money on R&D to make a car that can take on the priuses and civic hybrids. so far the best thing they can come up with is the volt and it is a total joke that cant even charge itself while driving. They cant make up for the fact they spent too long on the uber-lucrative jacked up truck and suv market. all of it spells doom for both.

just my opinion but, chrysler wont make it a year. the bits and pieces will most likely get sold to nissan/renault and the rites to make the routan to vw. nissan has already announced that dodge will be building its 1/2 ton truck for next year in return they hope to build a small car for chrysler for the north american market. the jeep name there is the prize and will most likely just get auctioned to whoever.

gm will file some form of bankruptcy just after the year and "maybe" might eek out with taxpayer support of course (because the total freakout of the world seeing a giant fall), but the pontiac, saturn, gmc truck, saab, hummer civilian, american buick will all be dead.

and of course no ceo will ever do a day in jail because of their total mismanagement of a once proffitable empire. and will happily settle to earth on golden parachutes.

a merger of both comapnies would be just bad because one company is swamped with too many dealers and the other company is swamped with no cash and too many cars no one wants.

 

The .2 - .5% may be true of new vehicles, but I just don't see putting 400,000 kms (250,000 miles) on a small north american car without a total engine rebuild and several other problems. GM, Ford and Chrysler never did catch up with the japanese on building long long lasting cars that are cheap to operate and that is why they are lying in ruins now.

I drive a civic every day that was built in Alliston Ontario and has 250,000 kms on it. I fully expect to see 400k like the Nissan Sentra I had before it.

 

Dude!

Toyota's had US plants since '57!

~Jason

 

That might have been better!

 

GM = General Mopar

 

Go here for all the facts on US vs. Foreign Automakers.

http://www.levelfieldinstitute.org/

Then go out and buy your rice-burner.

 

Here's some of the new fangled merger inventions:

Hemispherical W engine.
Fluid torque hydramatic
Frigidairtemp
Slant6/4 engine
GS roadrunner
Oldsmobile satellite
Ram silverado
Trail durango
Imperial El Dorado
Grand Prix Magnum

chime in with your best!

 

I would hate to see Ford, Chevy, and Mopar disappear. Though I fear that it is inevitable. I bought a brand new jeep two weeks ago and have driven it for exactly 2 days (it has spent the rest of its time in the shop). I'm not overly impressed with what the big three is putting out at the moment.

That being said, I don't think that I could bring myself to drive a honda or a Nissan. I've railed against foreign cars for too long to allow myself to buy one. The hypocrisy would just be too great. Instead of saving the banks, the government should have saved the car companies.

John

 

it's simple,they can blame everyone else who they want to, but if you build a car that no one wants,or one that requires constant service,or sucks gas, it's not going to sell. I wouldn't have a problem buying an American car, but with a few exceptions, that are extremly expensive, everything i've seen doesn't impress me. The problem is the top management at these companies, is totally out of touch with what people want to buy. If you don't have customers,you don't have a company. I saw this coming before the gas crisis, They were building a lot of large inefficient trucks and suv's and i figured eventually something was going to happen with the gas prices ,the signs have been there for a long time. There are places where trucks and suv's are needed and they can be very important, but not to drive an eight passenger one to the store to buy ten dollars worth of groceries. The signs were there that all this was going to happen,yet they continued to build them like there was no tomorrow. Now a lot of them are sitting on lots and they won't move.

 

quote: "...but if you build a car that no one wants,or one that requires constant service,or sucks gas, it's not going to sell..."
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the big 4 (if ya count AMC) did just that for years, before we had much choice. Then when the quality of those "cheap imports" started getting buyers' attention, the domestic makers couldn't - or wouldn't - match 'em. They seemed as focused as ever on profit, and expected demand that started after WWII to continue forever. It's too bad, they had the technology to make 'em better than those cheap imports, but instead offered us Pintos, Vegas, and K-Cars....

 

well they've had years to make em better,but despite some most weren't.

 

You don't see many K-Cars and Vegas on the roads these days.

 

this is great gm would be winners in top fuel top alchol and ss/a - h . its about time .

 

I heard the other day at Hershey someone saying that they were doing a movie in So Cal and they could only find three K-cars registered in the region!

 

The dealers are INDEPENDENT businesses. There are laws on the books in most states that stop the OEMs from doing anything that will compromise the dealer's income.

If the OEMs close a brand (Olds, Plymouth, etc) the dealers can sue for damages. The automakers can't withold product from a dealer for continually pissing off customers or fucking the manufacturer out of loads of cash in unneeded warranty work without getting sued now.

The NADA has the best politicians that money can buy now-a-days.

 

It's not just the hourly wage that is hurting them, the big drain is the health care benefits that go to the employee's and retire'es. Because of this, GM is largest private health insurer in the world.
I think I heard over $2000 of each car goes to health care.

 

must be nice i can't even get my insurance to pay a doctors visit. and i did see a GMC and a dodge merge today,the GMC ran a red light.

 

Then perhaps that's what should've happened (OEM should've sued) in my case. My pickup was never repaired correctly and I'd be willin' to bet every time the dealer spent one minute of labor trying, they billed the manufacturer. Truck wasn't fixed, Mfgr said it was normal - huh? I wonder if all the warranty claims submitted were denied since Ford said there was nothing wrong with it?? No matter, it still boils down to a combo of questionable quality (OEM) and poor PR (dealer personnel).

 

i also hear that they are going to stonewall all the unions out and teminate 75&#37; of the entrenched management. One name: Deming.

this is why American car suck ass, they just don't give a f@ck:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming

It is time you uneducated morons pull your heads out of your asses and read why. Here is the man that made it a reality...it took America 30 years to recognize him. Oops.

I am so tired of this continous whining BS. Yes back in the "day" American cars were superior, and I stop that statement with the Model T. When it came to sheer inovation of product, I would be hard pressed to name a more historically important automobile.

Challenge me.