kansaiwalker1

Wow, I saw this new book mentioned in the autoextremist.com website this week. I don't know if it has already been posted.

I knew things were going bad in Detroit but not this bad.

http://www.michelinemaynard.com/index.html

GreenMonster

Dude, haven't you seen "roger and me" by Mike Moore (from 1989??)

The big three have been in trouble for awhile. I used to be a domestic guy (last one was a ford), and I drive an Acura now. Nuff said.

edit:
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0098213/

jimcol711

all you dooms-dayers, gimme a break. theres alot of improvment across the board in american autos lately and it continues to do so. the only problem lately has been the economy, not the cars themselves.

scalbert

What?? Actually, what that matters??

I am far from anti-domestic and will support them till the end. But GM and Ford have admitted that they can't, nor desire to compete in the high volume, non-truck market. Since the Taurus has fallen off the map, the domestics make no real passenger vehicle with which they had previously dominated the market. Only the compact Focus is selling decently but is only tenth with the preceding nine making out the rest of the top selling cars.

GM and Ford have stated they will focus on the SUV/Truck market which they still lead. But that domination is dwindling with six of the top ten SUVs being import brands. Even three of the top ten trucks are import brands.

Without significant changes I can't see the market direction changing. Forget about niche or low volume status vehicles; they don't make up the volume of revenue. The SUV, truck and passenger car market are the main revenue channel. The domestics have no current, nor have I seen any release news, entry for a battle in the passenger car market. They seem to have rolled over and died in this arena. So it is left to the SUVs and truck.

Trucks are holding on strong but Toyota has made some good inroads here. As for the SUVs, the bigger-is-better motto seems to be reversing leaving GM and Ford at a loss since that was their market. So where are these saviors??

GreenMonster

Well said Scalbert

I was going to say the exact same thing, but I'm too lazy to do all that typing

mrdeeno

sure, the domestics are making progress and improving, but unfortunately the foreign makes are progreessing and improving so much faster.

it's not whether you make progress or not that determines survival...it's whether you can keep up that counts.

They can survive because of their size, but how much longer that will be true is anyone's guess.

CO-CL-S

What difference does it make. Another year of George and nobody except the executives will be able to afford any car or truck.

jimcol711

US automakers will NOT go under....ever...there are still millions of southerners and older people who wont buy a "jap" car because of their experiences overseas in wars and their pride for this country. the younger generation doesnt hold that same sense of pride or the racism due to bad feelings about wars and lost soldiers, etc. but even still, there are well more than enough hicks in this country that will always insist on buying an american truck and there will always be those die-hard american product loyalists, no matter how much better a "jap" vehicle may be. not only that, but for the last 2 years, you just cant beat the price on alot of american cars, yeah, they may not be the nicest cars around but when you can get a brand new fully loaded cavilier for 9,000 and any comperable foreign car is at least 15,000, its easy for some people to make the choice just to go with the cheapo car.

dfreder371

Let me relate my one hands on experience with Chevrolet in Detroit.

We came up with a new coating for screws that are very rust resistant, and also very resistant to the formation of "white rust." White rust is the screws are coated with zinc before the paint is applied, and when exposed to salt spray, the zinc transforms to zinc oxide, which is white. The zinc is sacrificial in nature when applied on steel, and turning white, which is not desirable when the screw is visible, but ok from a corrosion point of view. But when red corrosion forms, that represents material mass lost, and that is a bad thing.

So the chevy engineers make a big thing about this bug a boo white rust, and tells us they do not want to even meet with us until we performed just about every paint test in the world here.

We wanted to sell this fastener, the head was about the size of a nickle and one inch long, because 12 would be used per each car. We were not told the exact application. So, we did all of the tests that we were asked to do and the results came out very well.

Remember, the issue here was the avoidance of that UNSIGHTLY WHITE CORROSION, and was specific to this vehicle application only!

GM/Chevy reviewed my test data, and the told us to come to Detroit, which the four of us did. My (at the time idiot) boss, myself, the guy who applied the coating, and the company who designed the coating.

Imagine my suprise when I found out that these fasteners would be used to fasten exterior door handles to car doors (4 per car) using 3 screws each per handle from the INSIDE of the door!

And white corrosion in this case is an appearance issue here? SCHEEESH! What really ticked me off, was that they made me do extensive lab and real world testing to the resistance of sunlight, which takes a lot of time. Now just how much sunlight gets into the INSIDE of a car door? Just about zero.

So we go to detroit, and I am expecting a meeting of us four with maybe 6 or 8 people from the chevy finishing comittee. Probably in a medium sized conference room.

Nope! Remember the lecture halls in college? That is where we were put, but we weren't sitting in the seats. We had the stage.

In file about EIGHTY finishing engineers and take their seats, and I knew how this was gonna turn out before saying a word. We were STRICTLY limited to 5 minutes each, to summarize 18 months worth of data. I told my boss that this was gonna be a big wate of time, and I was right.

Of the 80, 20 said "let's jump on this". 20 said "don't know. we need more data." And the other 40 said "don't rock the boat. We know what we have now." So, we got on the plane and went home.

No wonder Detroit doesn't work! (And no offense meant to the fine people of Detroit, but the auto management sucks.)

mrdeeno

I have to disagree with that.

There are a lot of people who are brand loyal and i have nothing against these people, but the people who only buy american because it's american is a dying breed.

if i was to buy a full size pickup, i'd buy american also. The tundra is close but not quite as big and powerful as what the big 3 offer. The Nissan titan on the other hand will make a big splash though.

and that's why the "hicks" are still stuck on american makes, because they have no choice when it comes to full size powerful pickups.

They had to make this decision when foreign cars invaded...look who they chose.

Who will they choose when they are faced with this decision again?
and if it's true that people are still willing to pay $9k for a domestic vs. a comparable foreign car for $15k, then why are the "comparable" foreign cars still selling so well compared to the domestic?

I remember when I bought my first car ('96 civic ex). I crossed shop with saturn. The civic was loaded (sunroof, power everything, vtec, etc.) but the same priced "no haggle" saturn was a stripper with crank windows, no sunroof, and less power.

Today, throw hyundai into the equation, and that's why they are selling so well.

Bottom line, the domestics can't compete when it comes to qualities of a car, but their size and their trucks keep them alive.

scalbert

No, this is not about the Big Three going under, that will never happen. But it is about their diminishing market share which gets smaller and smaller every year. They cannot go by the status quo as it hasn't worked for years. The illusion that trucks will continue to be their savior is saddening.

As for southerns, etc. Guess what, I am one and have many good 'ole boy friends. Many do have and will continue to buy Ford or GM/Chevy trucks. But they are parking them next to Camry’s and Accord’s!!!

ModAddict

My TL-S, and those accords are american made cars, are'nt they?

darrinb

well those people gonna die soon...