You want to see something really ridiculous? Take a gander at the line of Ford crossovers.

Hey look! I’ts the Ford Edge! A three-row, four door crossover with a 3.5 L V6 and six speed automatic!

Oh, and then there’s the Ford Flex! It’s…also a three row, four door crossover with a 3.5L V6 and a six speed automatic.

But uh..there’s the Taurus X! And it’s—wait for it—a three row, four door crossover with a 3.5 L V6 and a six speed automatic.

All the same exact interior sizes and the same platform. It’s beyond parody.

Even the Jeep division of Chrysler, usually a very strong brand, is falling into this trap. The Compass AND the Patriot? Really, is that necessary, Chrysler? Why?

Part of the problem is the network of state laws that impact dealerships.  I haven’t read up on it in enough detail to summarize accurately, but the upshot is that dealerships have worked out a protectionist arrangement with state governments that makes it nearly impossible to streamline the distributor network.  That in turn makes it harder to eliminate stupid and duplicative product lines because different product lines feed different dealer networks.

I am a conservative/libertarian who would rather see Federal relief go directly to workers at the big three (lame three), instead of passing through these gutless, poorly-led corporations; they are circling the drain as it is. Even with the bailout they will end up firing people and closing plants. Chrysler still plans to give $30 million in incentive bonuses to its executives through March 2009 (!!), depite the past 6 weeks of begging in DC.

Is there an internet law like Godwin’s which predicts the probability of a libertarian stepping in to blame government and unions in a discussion of the stupid business practices of US car companies?

To be fair, Bob W attacked the CEOs, but still it pisses me off that the CEOs of corporations that actually make stuff get yelled and and dressed down while white collar CEOs of corporations that move money around are treated like royalty.

My comment was more about togolosh’s, I wrote it before Bob W’s was posted. It’s all the fault of protectionism, you see, that the heads of these car companies had bad marketing ideas.

That in turn makes it harder to eliminate stupid and duplicative product lines because different product lines feed different dealer networks.

One of the advantages of the bailout is that, under ideal circumstances, it could give the federal government authority to cancel many of those contracts, as a bankruptcy judge would have the authority to do.

I, of course, never understood why dealerships were owed so much special protection in the first place.

Part of the reason dealerships were accorded protection is that manufacturers used to have a lot more power over them and, believe it or not, used that power for evil.  I know—it’s quite a shock.

That said, Jesse’s right about the UAW and auto workers not having had anything to do with the fact that the Big Three spent the last 30 years completely trashing their brands, which in turn has a lot more to do with the problems the Big Three are facing than union contracts and legacy costs do.  A big deal has been made out of the fact that labor costs add another $800 to the price of every U.S. marque car, but that doesn’t explain why American consumers are still willing to pay more for the Japanese brands than they are for the U.S. marques.

Someone I know quite well who has been intimately involved in the car business for over 45 years opined as follows:

(1) Chrysler is irredeemable, and only its Jeep brand has any hope of future viability.

(2) GM can survive, but only if all brands other than Chevrolet and Cadillac are shitcanned.

(3) GM has over 6000 dealers; there should only be 1500.

(4) GMs corporate bondholders, shareholders, and weakest dealers are the ones that need to take a haircut, so that most of its factory employees and suppliers can survive.

(5) The massive duplication of worthless managers and marketeers across brands selling the same fucking cars must be eliminated; see #2.

(6) The only way to make this happen is for GM to enter bankruptcy, so that a bankruptcy judge can simply decree it. This will never happen via any plausible business or legislative negotiation process.

The intention of the White House and Senate to make the union workers take a pay cut to help bail out the Big Three will intimately cause even more economic problems.  By far the biggest disparity of labor costs between the Big Three and the Transplant companies is in the retirement benefits and health benefits that Big Three autoworkers have negotiated.  Retirement money and health benefits have a positive effect on the economy.  Benefits are a stabilizing force in the life of retired autoworkers.  Take them away and we will see even more shrinkage of the economy as retired workers pull back even more on their discretionary spending. 

We need to find a better answer than the knee jerk response to union autoworkers shown by the Senate and the White House.

Nick in Tacoma

A universal health care scheme would enable the companies to abolish those long term entitlements, without affecting the employees, and would grant those employees long-term confidence in their health care arrangements. It would benefit everyone involved.

It still wouldn’t change crap marketing decisions.

A universal health care scheme would enable the companies to abolish those long term entitlements, without affecting the employees, and would grant those employees long-term confidence in their health care arrangements. It would benefit everyone involved.

Bingo. This is something the media of course never mentions! Universal healthcare would go a long way towards making manufacturing viable in this country again, manufacturing done by American companies.

As I understand it, the problem with GM going into bankruptcy is that there won’t be any restructuring. It’ll go straight into liquidation, and then they’re done, and everyone along with them.

That, and no one will buy cars from a company in bankruptcy. This isn’t like an airliner, or Circuit City.

Don’t be so optimistic Ben! England has universal health care, and nobody buys anyone from them! (though they differ from Americans in, ah, not being able to produce anything…)

Eh, Jaguar? Land Rover? Bentley? I don’t know what their financial condition is like, but I can’t imagine it’s worse than the Big Three. Or if it is, that they’re actually getting aid from their government.

I think they’re all owned by European companies. You’re probably right and that’s why I mentioned healthcare, but I was just using your comment as an opportunity to raise one of my commonest and most popular gripes, which is that nothing in england works and everything is a rip off (I live here). The British “worker” maybe be supported by universal health care, but his/her unwillingness to do a single day’s work kind of undermines the benefits of the arrangement…

As I understand it, the problem with GM going into bankruptcy is that there won’t be any restructuring. It’ll go straight into liquidation, and then they’re done, and everyone along with them.

This is not my understanding at all, and that restructuring is what would happen. And one thing I forgot to add that my informant stated to me is that part of the process would have to be the federal govt providing the funds to back a guarantee of all warranties, to avoid this problem:

That, and no one will buy cars from a company in bankruptcy. This isn’t like an airliner, or Circuit City.

Flashheart, that’s why right wingers here always drag up the NHS, because it is probably the least good of the universal systems. Of course no one here is advocating a carbon copy of the NHS, and even if we were, it’d still be better than a non-universal system. I’ll take waiting lists over straight up lack of care.

Uh, Jesse, the Chevy Aveo is in no way anything like the Saturn Ion. The Ion is 25-30 inches longer and about 800 pounds heavier. They share no parts of any significance. Different engines, different transmissions, different floor pans. The Ion had plastic body panels, the Aveo conventional sheet metal. The Ion was a rough derivation of an Opel chassis, the Aveo a Korean Daewoo design. There are a lot of car combinations that would have made your point, but this wasn’t even close.

Also, Ben D., the Ford Edge is not a three-row crossover; it seats only five, not six or seven. And the Taurus X ceases production in February, as Ford noticed what you noticed. Now, what they plan to do when they convert the truck-based Explorer to a car-based crossover in 2011, I have no idea.

“No one would buy from a company in bankruptcy” is mostly an idea being floated os that the shareholders don’t lose everything, and among the shareholders happen to be all the current and former top managers…

But a good prepackaged Chapter 11 wouldn’t even cause a ripple. The damn things take a few weeks to a few months of actual “in reorganization” status, and then out pops the new venture with new shares, bonds and contracts.

Car brands, I think, are also a little like cereal and other packaged-food brands. You have a bunch of different iterations of the same thing to pitch at slightly different segments, but mostly to take up oodles of shelf space so no one else can get a foothold. For cars, you get everyone who wants to sell cars to be selling one of your cars, and not some upstart’s.

Also, Ben D., the Ford Edge is not a three-row crossover; it seats only five, not six or seven.

How hard would it be to simply make the third row on the Flex or Taurus X an option instead of standard, rather than having an entirely different car that is otherwise the same?

Ben D.:

Eh, Jaguar? Land Rover? Bentley?

Bentley is owned by Volkswagen, who bought it from BMW a few years ago. Jaguar and Land Rover are both owned by an Indian company, Tata Motors. Tata acquired both from Ford, which had them since the early 1990s.

As far as I can tell, the only British car marques that are still even tangentally owned by actual British interests are Aston Martin, jointly owned by an Englishman and a couple of Kuwaiti companies (who together bought it back from Ford); Ginetta, which is basically a glorified kit-car maker; and Bristol, which produces hand-built luxury cars in excessively tiny quantities.

I wonder then if we ought to have a “compehensive” American car industry at all - In my experience, people like, and have a passion for certain American cars, and have no interest in others.  Why should we be so fixated on the notion that American manufacturers must fill every car niche?  Seems silly to me.

Foreign makes don’t bother to compete with heavy American trucks.  I see older folks in Crown Vics and clones.  The Mustang has its own cult, same for the Corvette, and people in New Jersey still like Cadillacs and Lincolns.  I don’t know anyone who must have an Equinox or Fusion.  American cars that sell seem to be purpose built creatures.  I can’t think of an American car that simply moves people efficiently and economically and that people feel passionately about, like the Jetta.  Maybe the “American car” ought to pick a few things it does well, and stick to that.

There is no scenario worse than the government handing over billions to the big three.  None.  No matter what we, the taxpayers, are going to be stuck with the bill and history will have yet another example of private enterprise managing to privatize profits and socialize losses.  The current administration will do something, what exactly that is remains unclear but it will probably be money tossed down ratholes and by ratholes, I mean the private accounts of the people who run the big three.

I still say nationalize all three of them.  Fire everyone who doesn’t assemble cars, replace them with, well, anyone because frankly, from the designers and engineers to the bloated suits in the top floors, none of them have demonstrated any real value to their companies.  Then, put those companies to work producing smaller, efficient cars, electric vehicles and light rail/streetcars.  This provides private citizens and municipalities with cheap, cleaner transportation, something all of us can benefit from.

This requires an effort similar to the one undertaken during the beginning of the Second World War.  Sure it will cost an assload to do this.  You think my harebrained idea will cost less than some mythical bailout?

Whoever said “rail” is right on the motherfucking money.

The ion and the aveo are not the same car. They never were.

The main problem is that GM has for many years had more capacity than it’s been able to sell. No one has been able to make all the internal and external stake holders accept that they don’t need so many plants/brands/workers. The union did a good thing for their members years ago with the Job’s bank. This forced management to run the company to keep as many people working as possible. This worked because they made a lot of money on Trucks. Now the market is 30% the size it was last year, trucks aren’t cool, and they’re fucked. But go right ahead, keep buying cars made by temp workers and fuck the union.

How hard would it be to simply make the third row on the Flex or Taurus X an option instead of standard, rather than having an entirely different car that is otherwise the same?

HAHAHAHAHA you’re a fucking idiot. It would be very very hard.

HAHAHAHAHA you’re a fucking idiot. It would be very very hard.
Joe on 12/14 at 09:24 PM

They used to do it on their station wagons when I was a kid.

And what is a crossover if not a station wagon by a more marketable name?

The idea that there are different dealers, different marketing campaigns, different promotions and different pricing structures for the same product, neither of which was selling well enough to keep the company in the black, is simply mind-boggling.

This might be the second biggest mistake American automakers made. The Aveo and Ion aren’t the same car, but American carmakers have made the same car under two or three different names before. The Mercury Sable and the Ford Taurus were the same car. The Dodge Caravan, Plymouth Voyager, and Chrysler Town and Country were the same minivan. I think a lot of Dodge and Plymouth cars were exactly the same. I haven’t noticed American car companies doing this lately, but they did it for a long enough time to be completely ridiculous.

The biggest mistake, I think, is not making a hybrid or a car that gets 40 mph. The Prius has been in production since 1997. 1997!

I have been reading car magazines for year and they have been saying the same thing for years. GM has two to three times as many dealerships as Toyota and they sell half the cars. When GM tried to kill Oldsmobile, it cost them millions because of bizarre dealership contracts. The other thing that bogs GM down is too many products. They essentially compete with themselves. Of course every dealer has to have every kind and type of vehicle to sell, so that he can compete with the guy down the street. Go to a BMW dealership and you will see a 1, a 3, a 5 and a 7. No trucks, two SUV’s. A big one and a cute ute. Walk into a GM dealership, oh wait. No such animal, unless you want to buy a truck. GM needs to cut way down on the models it builds. I even have a plan. Chevy builds small and cheap. Pontiac builds sports cars, Buick builds sedans and Cadillac goes back to building luxury cars. They could have a division that builds police cars and taxi cabs. All trucks should be built by GMC. Problem solved.
Next?

Sorry, make that ” I have been reading car magazines for years”

It’s interesting that none of them ever note that Toyotas are far more expensive than similar domestic cars. My father, who’s been a Toyota owner for a long time, just bought a Buick because it was $5000 less expensive with more extras than the comparable Toyota. He hates it, but with the value of his stocks cut in half, he’s got to live with it.

We just bought a 2006 BMW 330xi. Why? It was the best sedan we could find with all wheel drive. No American car manufacturer makes one. And if you had to drive around Minnesota today, freezing rain, 3 degrees, you would know why we wanted all wheel drive.

We could have bought an Audi, Subaru, Mercedes or a VW however. Makes you wonder what the “Big Three” are thinking when they build all those Cobalts and Ion’s.

OldDog, have you ever tried to tell a car dealer that 4WD or AWD is a non-negotiable?  The ones selling American cars get flustered real quick.

By far the biggest disparity of labor costs between the Big Three and the Transplant companies is in the retirement benefits and health benefits that Big Three autoworkers have negotiated.

It just occurred to me today, but the people who keep insisting that the UAW has to cut health care benefits to their retired workers don’t seem to realize where those people will immediately turn.  That’s right, boys and girls, they’ll go right into the Medicare system, where the tax dollars of the union-busters will pay for their health care.  Basically, they’re begging for their taxes to go up so they can support retired autoworkers.

Why are the “small government” types calling for even more people to be added to Medicare?  Why do they hate America? 

I’m the type who runs whatever car I buy into the ground before buying a new one.

On the few occasions I was looking for a new car, I always looking at the American brands first. The first time was in the 1983… I don’t think I need to say more about the state of the American auto business in the early 80’s, right? I ended up with a Corolla. I would have kept it longer if it wasn’t rusting away (paint job after a fender bender repair sucked)... everything else about it was working just fine… even traded it in with the original clutch!

The next time was in 1998. The ‘initial quality’ of American cars seemed better, but unless you were willing to get another car every 3 to 5 years, the long term repair record of American cars were not stellar. And my admittedly anecdotal observations of my friends’ experiences with their American cars seemed to confirm this. I ended up with a Honda… So far no major repairs (knock on wood), gets the same 36 mpg (mixed city/hwy) like when it was new… not bad for 10 year old technology. Yeah, is the same efficiency as my Corolla, but I got 50% more horsepower; they obviously dumped the efficiency gains into power rather than gas mileage.

I will look into an American car again the next time around if they’re still here, and if I can be assured of getting the same reliability and efficiency as I got from my Japanese cars, then no problem…

You’ll notice that of the Big Four, only Hummer is doing great, because the others make pussy cars and because Jason Statham drives Hummers and Hummer variants in all of his movies.  If the American pussy car makers would just fire all of their union labor and subcontract Hummer to make all of their vehicles, the USA of America would be on the road to greatness, rather than LIEbral fascistic-communism.

Ben D, I suspect the NHS is the least worst thing over here. It’s the inability of the British “worker” to do a day’s “work” which is the cause of all those companies going European, and the reason US car companies would easily overrun British ones if they didn’t have their health care plan overheads.

Ben D: From what I hear putting everything on the same platform and only change, dunno, the logo and the seat cushion is done exactly to save money—changing a whole construction line from one model to another takes a lot longer than changing small things in the finish. Next step is making to order from a construction kit of basic designs.

Personally, I’m a tiny bit worried about GM because I like Opels—frugal, practical, larger on the inside. I wonder if Berlin will buy the brand out of GM.

Nick in Tacoma: By far the biggest disparity of labor costs between the Big Three and the Transplant companies is in the retirement benefits and health benefits that Big Three autoworkers have negotiated.

Also, it shows the banktrupcy of a system that depends on employers to provide benefits, by making it very visible that the companies will nick grandpa’s pension money.

Ben D.: Universal healthcare would go a long way towards making manufacturing viable in this country again, manufacturing done by American companies.

This argument seems, unfortunately, to get eclipsed by the one that not offering health care is a zero cost solution for companies.

flashheart: England has universal health care, and nobody buys anyone from them!

Everyone in the first world has universal health care. Except for the US.

Nick in Tacoma re benefits:

One option that I heard suggested on “Cross-Country Checkup” (CBC radio, last night) might be to have a government guarantee of the pension benefits, thus taking those amounts “off the books” if they impair the ability of the car companies to survive.

I have no clue as to whether this is a good idea or not.  I do know that it’s quite possibly a deal-breaker with large segments of the public.  I’m self-employed, and have been for large chunks of my career.  I have never worked at an employer rich enough to have a pension plan, and I am severely under-prepared for my retirement.  My first reaction to that suggestion was a blistering anger of FUCK YOU!!!!  I’M PAYING FOR THE RETIREMENT OF SOME ASSHOLE WHO HAD A GUARANTEED JOB FOR TWENTY FUCKING YEARS AT OODLE$ PER HOUR AND FULL BENEFITS????  FFUUUUUCK YOU!!!!!

I calmed down after only a second or two, and let rational considerations kick back in.  But, fact remains, I bitterly resented the suggestion, and, even calmly, I still have profound distaste for it.  I doubt, very much doubt, that I am alone in this!  And not everybody calms down and lets the left side of the brain kick in.

It’s a little sad that many of the problems that made NAm-made cars a no-go zone for buyers for much of the 80s and 90s have, I’m told, been eliminated from the system.  Like the other poster said, “too late”.

I’ve bought one, count it, one, brand new car in the 27 years since I got a driver’s licence.  It was a Cavalier RS back in the early 1990s.  Good car, I quite liked it.  Affordable, lots of power.

What I didn’t like was the warranty requirements.  I got tons of mail from GM with long lists of wholly unnecessary service which were mandatory just to keep my warranty valid.  (Then as now I was a lawyer handling large amounts of paperwork.  You can imagine how much I loooooooved endless piles of mail from my car dealer and GM that I had to peruse carefully in order to ensure that I didn’t inadvertently void my warranty or miss something of import.  It was like having a high-maintenance client who never paid me anything.) 

Financially, the upkeep on such a brand-new car was thus disproportionately expensive: I was frequently paying the sort of money that one expects to lay out on the upkeep of a much older car.  It was infuriating.  And it was one of the reasons that I felt comfortable selling the car when I moved into downtown T.O. and had access to excellent subway connections. 

A salesman of my acquaintance tells me that GM no longer does that, and haven’t for many years.  But that unpleasant experience kept me from even looking at new cars, period, let alone a GM product, for over a decade and a half and that was over a car that I quite liked and quite enjoyed driving and with which I had no problems whatsoever in the year and a quarter that I owned it. 

Think about that: I bought a good-quality N.Am car that I loved driving and the experience was so expensive and frustrating that I never did it again.  I I wonder how many other potential buyers said “to hell with this” and never went back?

Postscript:

As best as I can compare I spent roughly the same amount of money (in constant dollars) this year to keep a fourteen year old Volvo (with 360k+ on the clock) running smoothly as I was paying to keep a brand-new GM on the road.

I’ve wondered about the same thing.  And the other day one of the Big 3 exces (I don’t remember which one) was trying to argue that his companies car X was TOTALLY different from that companies car Y.  But, yeah, same car, different decals.

seeker6079: I’M PAYING FOR THE RETIREMENT OF SOME ASSHOLE WHO HAD A GUARANTEED JOB FOR TWENTY FUCKING YEARS AT OODLE$ PER HOUR AND FULL BENEFITS????

Pension plans are a kind of pay. You’re paying what the company owes its workers. Which is a bad thing, but not the workers’ fault for driving a hard bargain when they had something to sell that was scarce. Except maybe insofar as they shouldn’t have trusted a company that has neither a soul to damn nor an ass to kick that it would keep any promise it made…

I’ve often thought my perception of American cars as inferior is a product of coming of (driving) age in the 70’s, the time of the Chevette, Pinto, and horrifically emasculated Mustang.

Then, in the 90’s, I bought a Camry the same month my father bought a Taurus. At the time, these were considered fairly equivalent vehicles (although his was cheaper). Over the next 5 or 6 years, I had to replace an alternator (covered by warranty) and a battery. Nothing else except windshield wiper blades and oil changes. My dad’s Taurus had to be repainted (defective paint peeled off roof and hood) and blew a manifold gasket, requiring hundreds and hundreds of dollars to repair.

Anecdotal, yes, but the next car I got sure as hell didn’t say “Ford” or “Chevrolet”...

Pension plans are a kind of pay. You’re paying what the company owes its workers.

Which makes the workers de facto investors in the corporation; they chose to be creditors.  The most powerful union in North American chose that particular retirement pay option over others, including a union-controlled pension plan, or higher pay for worker-controlled retirement options.  I’m not taking a libertarian position, here, nor am I conceding the rationality or applicability of my own initial reaction.  And what the union would seek pales in comparison to the whore money being trucked in for the financial sector. 

I’m just saying that the government using a share of meagre resources to bail others who have been, for decades, far more economically secure than I, evokes a visceral reaction…. and visceral reactions are often the rocket fuel of bad policy.  I’m not anti-blue collar.  I have worked blue collar on and off throughout my life, and still maintain my union card even though I’m a lawyer again.  I am a huge admirer of CAW, whose social justice actions are consistent and noble.  All I’m saying about this one point is that people without sweet retirement plans get very pissed off at being forced to pay for other people’s, and that instapissedoffedness would be a barrier to the pension suggestions being made by many people. 

At what point does the government’s obligation to protect people from their own choices begin, and end?  Economic libertarians might have their heads up their asses in always answering “never intervene, EVAH!” but at least they’re asking the question.  We should, too.  And add a “why?” onto proposed answers.

In terms of the look of North American cars, I have a question: Am I the only one who got very tired of the Big Three trotting out superfantasticultracool concept cars, seeing them hyped to the moon, then seeing few to none of them making their way into sales?  Constantly being shown and impliedly promised the moon, then seeing the same old shit with a pathetic redesign must contribute at least in part to people’s disillusionment with Detroit as a whole.  I’m not saying it’s significant.  But we all get very tired of people promising good things that they don’t deliver and as a result we write them off as credible.  Could this have at least played a role, or is it just a personal irritant for me?

The Big 3 have killed more greening technology by buying and burying patents.  The money is there for them if they dust off some very old plans.  I think it was Ford who killed the career of an engineer who developed an electric car that really rocked for them because he actually wanted to build it.  About 2 decades ago.  With CEOs of oil companies on their boards, that isn’t going to happen any time soon.
The car companies have some serious financial problems outside the general realm of actually building cars: stealing from their workers’pension plans, dabbling in realestate financing, etc.
That said, their biggest problem is that when someone walks in and says “I want X, Y, Z.”, they will often just say “we have nothing for you.” and walk away.  Anecdotal - my husband in NE a couple of weeks ago at a local Ford dealership.

Get the money for the bailout based on a windfall profits tax on the oil companies.  They wanna save their cash cow then they can pay for the privilege.

As mentioned on a thread last week, I owned 1 American-made car 30 years ago and it was a piece of crap.  As much as I do try to buy American, difficult as it is, it won’t be for my automobile.  In the ensuing 30 years, I have had a Volvo, Subaru, Audi, BMW 2 Mercedes and am now driving a 2004 Lexus that I bought in 2006. I always buy a year or 2 year-old car, as I generally cannot afford to buy the kind of car I like new.  My last Benz was traded in at 240,000 miles and other than regular maintenance, I had to replace the muffler once and the brakes twice.  That’s it.  My sister and I bought my college student daughter a 2007 Subaru Outback last year and it is a great car.

My favorite so far is the Lexus.  Front-wheel drive, luxury ride, dependable as hell.  I know they’re made in the states, but obviously, their foreign management has a lot to do with the design, quality, etc.  I know their benefits are not as good, and that does bother the hell out of me.  One cannot fault the Detroit workers in this mess.  Detroit has been pushing killer SUVs and Hummers when all the very obvious signs pointed in the opposite direction.  As much as I detest what generally comes out of the Big 3, I would hate to see them go down.  Just for the sake of the workers and everybody down the chain.  And the fact it is so obviously union-busting by the senators from the states where Toyota, Lexus, et al. are made just PISSES ME OFF NO END.  For that simple fact, I think they should be saved.

““I want X, Y, Z.”, they will often just say “we have nothing for you.” and walk away.  Anecdotal - my husband in NE a couple of weeks ago at a local Ford dealership. “

Did he check the web to see if Ford made a car with X,Y and Z? When I went looking for an AWD sedan, I kept coming up with three German and one Japanese car.  So I bought a German one. In any event I wish the Big Three would be more selective about what they build and sell. And concentrate on making them the best that they can. Every dealer does not have to have every kind of car there is.  And as I have said before, If I walk into a GM dealership, I should be able to buy just about anything, because they have so many brands. But then, the brands are all the same cars, with different badges.

As for the guy who said “but it’s a niche car.” That is just the point. Find a few niche’s and fill them and pretty soon you have a viable car company.

Foreign makes don’t bother to compete with heavy American trucks

Detroit has been pushing killer SUVs and Hummers when all the very obvious signs pointed in the opposite direction.

On what planet do y’all live on?  The Japanese competed in every single market segment.  The Germans in most of them.  The reason they sell the Prius in the US (where to they get these stupid names) is they can’t give them away in Japan.

Detroit’s main problem is insufferable car snobbery.

With CEOs of oil companies on their boards, that isn’t going to happen any time soon.

I suspect the reason why gas prices came down so suddenly and so dramatically (we’re down to $1.60 in Los Angeles) is that the oil companies finally woke up and realized they were shooting themselves in the foot.  Turns out that if you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, suddenly you don’t have any more golden eggs.  If you kill off the industry that’s the primary user of your product, your own collapse will not be far behind.

The brands are just how do you want your car served…

...But they make no effort to differentiate the service of each, the the anything of each, and the basic car is trash.

If the Honda Hybrid had to use half its patents from GM, where’s the GM line of Hybrids?  What brand is that?

The answer, it isn’t.

On what planet do y’all live on?  The Japanese competed in every single market segment.  The Germans in most of them.  The reason they sell the Prius in the US (where to they get these stupid names) is they can’t give them away in Japan.

Magis, I’m not suggesting that other car manufacturers (foreign) didn’t have their SUVs.  I am saying that they also offered a decent product outside of those lines.  Detroit did not.  Their sedans (other than Cadillac) and smaller cars were ugly, rattling, high-maintenance pieces of crap.  The only reason I know about Cadillac is that is what my father has always driven.  And I still like my Lexus better.  More luxurious and better gas mileage.  And it has front-wheel drive, which gets me around just fine here in Iowa.

Car snob?  Maybe.  All I know is I’ve had much better luck with my foreign cars (all sedans) over the past 30 years than anyone I know that drove a “comparable” domestic car.  And my cars went for hundreds of thousands of miles, stayed looking great (i.e. no little bits and pieces falling off) and gave me no trouble.

From what I’ve heard, the Ford Prius appears to be a fairly good auto, but I’ll wait another 10 years and see how many are still on the road, running well and looking good.

Old Dog:

Where the hell were you doing your online search for an AWD sedan?  On the Internet I’m using, I can find plenty of information on AWD Ford Taurus, AWD Ford Fusion, AWD Mercury Milan, AWD Subaru Legacy, Impreza, Forester (most made in Ohio), AWD Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger, and on and on and on the list goes. 

The amount of chatty ignorance on this thread is breathtaking.  (Cf. kac90b: From what I’ve heard, the Ford Prius appears to be a fairly good auto, but I’ll wait another 10 years and see how many are still on the road, running well and looking good.  Ford Prius?  Good farking grief.)

Well, what do you know.

Anyway I should have prefaced my remarks with I was looking for a used car here in Minnesota. Perhaps those models have not come up on the used car market yet here. And for what it’s worth, I consider a Subaru a Japanese car.

Sorry, Stickler.  I mis-typed.  I believe I meant the Ford Focus.  Not exactly ignorant here, just thinking one thing and typing another.

OldDog:

Well, for used, you might have a point.  Most of those models weren’t around in 2004 (though the Fusion was introduced in ‘06, and Ford spent a metric ass-ton of money telling everyone that AWD was available.  Of course, their advertising sucks pretty hard, so no surprise if you didn’t hear about it).  But really, AWD was supposed to be the selling-point for American manufacturers in the sedan market, because they’d spent so much money on SUV development.  Good plan, that, unless gas goes above $3/gal.  Which it did.

Kac90B:  How you mis-typed Prius for Focus beggars the imagination.  The new Focus has pretty good quality, but Ford totally cheaped out on the design (axeing the hatchback for 2008?  As gas was going to pass $4.50?), and for that matter cheaped out on bringing us the European model in 200(freaking)5.  But the Prius and Focus are like ... eh, can’t think of a snappy metaphor.  Computer and old agricultural tractor, maybe.  But the Focus does get pretty good mileage, and you can have one for a song.  Now that gas is down to $1.80/gal., the same holds true for the Prius, too. 

So, sing!  And maybe Santa will bring us all a new car for Christmas.

Arguing about saving the car companies is a bit like debating what colour you want your prison bars painted. I find it absolutely mindboggling that progressives can find the presence of mind to deconstruct systems like patriarchy (in all its subtle evil and bogosity), yet still thinks that cars are “necessary.”

Cars are another system of control that provide an illusion of freedom, and that’s not just tinfoil hat speak—think of the staggering amount of pollution, waste and fossil fuels burnt just in their manufacturing and disposal, on top of their useful lifetimes. Think of the landmass now given over to roads, highways, “free” parking. Think of all the chemicals that leach off the asphalt into the water table, or out to the oceans. Even electric cars don’t help in this regard.

If you live in a typical suburban pod community (i.e. tract homes only, no main street, no commerce), i.e. ‘enjoying the American dream,’ you are now addicted to car use, tithing tens of thousands of dollars a year for repairs and gasoline…It’s rare that you can find a municipality with even half-decent public transportation to serve these areas even if you wanted to go car-free.

It is cars that have caused municipalities to completely neglect the public realm. When it became possible for people to flee cities for suburbs that were not-that-far-away-by-car, downtowns died. Cities are only just now realizing that the tax base fled with them, causing a vicious cycle of depopulation and further declines in services.

We didn’t need cars a hundred years ago. (And before you get on a high one, no, not everyone owned horses either, says my history-museum-employee mother.) We shouldn’t need cars now.

So go ahead, bail out the Big Three, but as another poster said—green manufacturing, total lifecycle management, and a plan to gradually transition away from unsustainable ‘car culture’ towards revived neighborhoods, relocalized economies, and world-leading public transit / rapid transit should be their new mandate.

“My first reaction to that suggestion was a blistering anger of FUCK YOU!!!!  I’M PAYING FOR THE RETIREMENT OF SOME ASSHOLE WHO HAD A GUARANTEED JOB FOR TWENTY FUCKING YEARS AT OODLE$ PER HOUR AND FULL BENEFITS????  FFUUUUUCK YOU!!!!!”

That’s exactly the reason the bailout sucks. It pays a group of people based on their political clout, at the expense of other, equally deserving people.  Conditioning the bailout on reducing wages, or executive pay, or payments to bondholders—all arguably valid conditions—doesn’t change the fact that a bailout taxes a lot of people who don’t have powerful lobbies (unions, management, suppliers, dealers, etc.) to pay people who do.

Chapter 11 is the way to deal with this.  The only potential guarantee would be to guarantee the car warranties, and that might be accomplished at the right price by a private group in a pre-packaged bankruptcy.  Paying the suppliers 100% is infeasible, just as paying the union wages, the executive salaries, the bondholders, the creditors, and the shareholders is all infeasible.  Unless you nationalize the US auto industry, you won’t be able to keep any of this up for long.

Contrary to what someone said, liquidation cannot be forced at the outset.  If GM, say, files Chapter 11, there is an “exclusivity period” where GM, and only GM, can propose a reorganization plan.  This period can and often is extended by the bankruptcy court to allow the debtor to work with creditors to come up with a plan.  Only if that fails can other plans be proposed, including (but not limited to) liquidating plans.  Creditors could move to convert a Chapter 11 reorganization to a Chapter 7 liquidation, but there are statutory criteria that must be met.  In short, if GM files Chapter 11, it will very likely get a bunch of time to reorganize free of the immediate demands of creditors.

Also, as someone noted, Chapter 11 allows the bankruptcy court to wipe out all of the protectionist dealer legislation, bizarre dealer-manufacturer contracts, as well as union deals.  It is an equal-opportunity shafting of anyone with a contract with the debtor, although some claims have priority over others, set by statute, so the equality is in the fact of shafting, not necessarily the amount of shafting.

Chapter 11 spreads the pain of decades of mismanagement and greed over the people who are most closely involved.  The statutory priorities shift the pain according to set principles, not according to who has the best lobbyist on Capitol Hill this week.  Chapter 11 doesn’t assign blame to any group—management, unions, etc.—but instead works to create an entity that can survive after reorganization.  Maybe that can’t be done, but it is much more likely that GM can survive Chapter 11 than it could survive one or at most two rounds of bailouts, regardless of the conditions that might be applied.

But really, AWD was supposed to be the selling-point for American manufacturers in the sedan market, because they’d spent so much money on SUV development.  Good plan, that, unless gas goes above $3/gal.  Which it did.

My evil German AWD sedan gets 27 mpg, which I think is just fine. Plus, It is the nicest car I have ever owned, inside and out. Maybe Ford, GM or Chrysler build just as good a car. I don’t know. They abused my trust way too many times in the past and they have lost me as a customer. I can’t even bring myself to go on the lot and look. I will say, I did have a Jeep Cherokee that was OK from 86-89. But the guy I sold it to had to junk it soon after he bought it. You might coax me into buying another Jeep, but I doubt my wife would go along with it.

Olddog:

My evil German AWD sedan gets 27 mpg, which I think is just fine. Plus, It is the nicest car I have ever owned, inside and out. Maybe Ford, GM or Chrysler build just as good a car. I don’t know. They abused my trust way too many times in the past and they have lost me as a customer.

US manufacturers abusing your trust?  That I believe.  27 MPG with an AWD BMW?  Not so much.

Ford and GM certainly build “just as good a car” as Toyota, if you take that phrase to mean “reliability”.  The newer models have equalled Toyota design quality, mostly, but clunky and flabby still characterize some US designs.  Or, more frequently, you run into a design that was damned fine in 2001 but has been only cheapened since (Hi, Mr. Ford Escape!  Nice new chrome grill!).  Most stuff that hit the showrooms since about 2004-06 is much, much better than you’d expect.

You should give Ford or GM a go next time you’re looking for a car (provided that they’re still around).  Both have spent huge sums improving their interiors.  Not yet up to German standards (I own a VW and a Ford)—let alone BMW.  But you’ll not be paying no $27K for a Fusion, unless you’re an idiot, either.  Remember, too, that Ford is tied with Toyota for quality in the latest Consumer Reports car issue.  More or less.

Kac90B:  How you mis-typed Prius for Focus beggars the imagination. 

I said it was a MIS-TYPE (i.e. mistake), not a fucking typo.  Maybe I meant Ford Fusion.  All I know is that is a Ford, starts with an “F” and I had heard it was a fairly decent car.  Get off of it, already.  If a simple mistake beggars your imagination, you have damn little to work with.

You should give Ford or GM a go next time you’re looking for a car (provided that they’re still around).  Both have spent huge sums improving their interiors.  Not yet up to German standards (I own a VW and a Ford)—let alone BMW.  But you’ll not be paying no $27K for a Fusion, unless you’re an idiot, either.  Remember, too, that Ford is tied with Toyota for quality in the latest Consumer Reports car issue.  More or less.

No way.  Like I said upthread, when I see one going down the road 10-15 years from now, pushing 250k miles that is not a rattling deathtrap, then MAYBE it’ll be considered.  Until then, I’ll keep driving the Lexus I have now.  Then I’ll get another one.

BTW, which Ford is tied “more or less” with which Toyota for quality?

US manufacturers abusing your trust?  That I believe.  27 MPG with an AWD BMW?  Not so much.

Well, maybe it’s the way I drive or the 6 speed manual transmission, but 27 MPG is what I get. But as we all like to say on the internets, YMMV. It’s not all roses, though. I am not fond of the iDrive and trying to add satellite radio is turning out to be very expensive. Overall, I am very happy with my purchase and I believe that I will still be very happy 5 years from now.

seeker6079: Yes, exactly what Watergate says—not being able to pay your creditors in the forseeable future is bankruptcy. It’s not “some creditors are more equal then others, so let’s keep the pension monies to make the books look better”.

(From a worker’s perspective it also means that you should demand sufficient interest on every penny you lend to the company, to compensate you for a risk that has, again and again, proven to be substantially.)