Delphi Bankruptcy

[Mark #28455]

consumer reports

Always wondered why the Hondas rated excellent in outer body rust through while the Corvettes rated only average.

Go figure!
Mark

[mike cobine]

Re: What the hell is a "job bank"?

Thanks, Mike.

I should have added, Motorola today is a shadow of its former self. No one can blame the unions, as there are none. It is a case of management messing up and being underpriced by cheap competition.

Anyone want to buy a satelite system?

However, a Motorola radio you could drop 50 feet to the ground or more, leave it in a rock road and drive over it until it was buried in the road, use it to chock the wheels on a railroad car, throw the thing as far down the hall as you can, and they will still work.

Most of their competition's radios broke if you simply dropped it three feet, yet because they were half the price, people bought the competition.

[Bill B.]

Re: What the hell is a "job bank"?

I'd love to sit and talk sometime, George. I promise to bring my mid year that I am so proud of and I think you'll agree that I can appreciate American engineering, for good reason. I'll also bring the beer. How bout a Heineken? Seriously, I respect your opinion and hope you can also repspect mine. Have a great day.

Regards.
Bill B.

[mike cobine]

Re: What about the country?

From working at more than a dozen companies the last 20 years, I have seen this one generalized condition:

If management and the working force are treated the same way percentage-wise in benefits, the working force will often go to the wall for the company.

But if management is getting the sweetheart deal of no cuts or actually gets a bonus, while the working force takes a cut, hostility arises and the quality of work goes way down.

No amount of rhetoric can cure it. The usual thing that gets it back is elimination of several visible upper management, visible pay cuts in management, and increases in the work force's benefits. If Chas' statement is accurate, then they are going exactly the opposite of the way to cure it, almost like they want the corporation to crash.

[Chris H.]

Re: consumer reports

I really did not want to get in on this but the only fair measure available to everyone is the JD Power company's. Everyone has an opinion from their own experience or rumors or what ever. This is a scientific surveying company.

They have a number of surveys. The most famous is the ISQ2 which measures initial quality of vehicles 90 days old. This measures what has broken after 90 days of ownership. Years ago the domestics really did not do well and Toyota/Honda did great. Today Lexus is number 1, Toyota 7th. Buick and Cadillac are 4 and 5. BUT the problems per hundred vehicles only varies from 81(Lexus) to 105(Toyota). Buick has 100, Cadillac 104 and Honda 112 right next to GMC trucks. So what we get out of this is that initial quality is about the same at 1 problem per car. The worst is Suzuki,Mazda and VW at 1.5. The difference is so small that no one should care anymore especially since the numbers used to be over 5 problems per car. They also show the best plants with GM getting the top 3 (Oshawa 1 & 2, Hamtramck). The LaCrosse/Grand Prix/Impala/Regal/Century easily outdo the Camry and Accord in the midsize segment.

Just facts.

[Clem Z.]

mrs clems 2000 impala was trouble free

never to the dealers till she bought a new 2004. GM would not allow me to use the $3600 GMC credit card allowance on my C-6 last fall,only $1000 so she used it for a total of $8600 off of sticker. since this is a proven car i hope the same for this one. these cars are great,200 HP 3800 V-6,20+ MPG every day,30+ on road trips,room for 5 and a very large trunk. great family car

[mike cobine]

But will it pull a Corvette on an open trailer?

The old Impalas with a real frame would. I'd like to get back to a car, instead of a pickup and we already have an SUV that won't tow, but I would need to tow a trailer maybe once or twice a year.

[Clem Z.]

i use my pickup for towing because

we need 2 vehicles in the family so one is a pickup. we have 3 vehicles BUT the C-6 does not count as a "NEED" we had some of those impalas and caprices with BBC engines and we did tow with them but they got expensive to drive as every day cars. it is very hard to get by these days with 1 "universal" type car.

[mike cobine]

Re: i use my pickup for towing because

I'd like to grab a late '60s/early '70s El Camino or Chevelle to replace the truck but it would be a drag to take it to the airport. Actually, to NOT be able to take it to the airport and have to get the limo ride. The limo would be fine if their schedule wasn't so limited and there wasn't so much led time on the flight. I end up leaving 4 hours early with the limo, 2 if I drive.

The wife has the SUV, and I don't really need the truck. Unfortunately, she loves her Highlander so there is no replacing it with a Tahoe or Suburban.

If you could actually rent a truck to tow a trailer other than a U-Haul big moving truck, I'd do that for the very few times I trailer anywhere. But here, Hertz, Avis, Enterprise, etc won't rent anything to pull a trailer and who wants to travel in a U-Haul, not to mention U-Haul's mileage rates are killers.

[Clem Z.]

Re: i use my pickup for towing because

my first PUs were elcamino back in the early 70s when as a family we got into snowmobiles and dirt bikes. i 73 i bought my first "real" pickup and have had them ever since except in 1980s. i had a 482 cu in BBC powered PU,a corvette beater, and mrs clem had a 454 powered caprice. she said the gasoline bill was running $400 a month back them so i sold the PU and bought a 4 cyl 4 speed citation for evey day use BUT used the caprice to pull the dirt bike and snowmobile trailer. in 1988 after my son got out of pitt i bought a extended cab 8 ft bed silverado which i still have to this day.PUs come in handy not just for me but since my son lives next door he does not need to buy one.

[Tony Merendino]

Re: i use my pickup for towing because

If you want to see what American manufacturers can do today look at the Imapla it is an outstanding car. You can get a 303 HP small block V8 that will give you 30 highway milage 25+ city fast, sleek, handles well, and it cost less than a Camry or an Accord. My wife won't drive anything else. It is truly a great car and that is not the only one GM, or other American manufacturers make. Someone mentioned the problems that they had with their 89 GM car. That is ancient history but that is a big problem for American manufacturers today. People don't forget. Look at those JD Powers surveys today America makes quality cars today.

The foreign manufactures may have made us do it but it is done. Perception has a tendency to become reality. Honda's never break down, GM makes junk, German engineering is the best in the world. Times change and markets force manufacturers to change to survive. Ask a Mercedes owner today. For years people paid a huge premium for Merceedes quality, today they are in trouble because they now rank down on the quality survey's. They have taken their customers for granted. They will change or disappear.

All I am saying is look at the facts today, don't judge today by what happened in 1989. Chevrolet makes more models that get more than 30 MPG then Toyota and Nissan combined.

[Mike McKown]

Well, Well,

I started to post exactly the same thing this morning, but I erased it. Glad you did. I've been reading Consumer Reports/Research since 1954. Same old stuff. George Romano is right. NO AMERICAN CAR will get a good rating in either reliability or initial impression. Haven't for years since the Beetle came on the scene.

There is such a thing as "perceived quality" which means that the owner tends to overlook maybe small things gone wrong because he/she truly believes they made the best quality purchase. Therefore, on the surveys, the owners, rather than admit there is something wrong with their choice, they simply stick their head in the sand. This happens. Believe me, I've personally been through it.

[Gene B.]

Re: Delphi Bankruptcy

And the union bosses amass fortunes far in excess of any of the executives. Tell me who is hurting the american worker? How much does the union boss have at risk if the company fails? Nothing.

[mike cobine]

Re: Delphi Bankruptcy

That is the basic point of this whole conversation, the guys on top of anything rarely hurt and usually improve their standing, while the guys in the trenches slowly die.

Of course, the AFL-CIO membership is about 12.9 million members. What company exec can say they are leading that many?

I think you are apples and oranges. To get a fair comparison, you need to get the union leaders who are over 50,000 to 75,000 people and then compare them to executives of Motorola (66,000), Lucent Technologies (45,000), Nortel (94,000), Cellco Partnership [Verizon and Vodafone] (49,800), Sprint (59,900) {which went on strike yesterday}, and so on.

And some very large companys still are way below the 12.9 million.

IBM (160,000 US, 319,000 worldwide)
GM (300,000 - 2001)
Ford (350,000 - 2001)
DaimlerChrysler (372,000 - 2001)
Toyota (246,000 - 2001)
Volkswagen (322,000 - 2001)
Honda (120,000 - 2001)

More - http://www.worldtrademag.com/CDA/Art...,94347,00.html

[Grant M.]

Re: consumer reports

Chris,

While JD Power's ISQ2 may be the "most famous", there was another JD Power survey released a couple of months ago that rated vehicles after three years in terms of number of problems. Top rank was Porsche, followed by Lexus, Lincoln and then Buick. Chev, Ford, Pontiac, Honda and Toyota were down the list near the industry average, and the aforementioned Suzuki, Mazda, and VW were also near the bottom (as was Audi, Mercedes and Land Rover).

A Toyota executive recently was quoted as saying that the quality gap had virtually disappeared between the "American" vehicles and the Japanese brands. He saw the new battleground being one of design.

The problem for modern "American" cars (meaning GM/Ford/Chrysler) is that their
well-deserved reputation for poor quality and reliability earned in the '70s, 80's and 90's will take some time to overcome, particularly since the new "generation" of car buyers has grown up hating the domestic products. Their brand loyalties are to the imports.

Interestingly, a recent newspaper article listing (Canadian) sales of new vehicles for the month of September, showed that GM (down 10.5% from September 2004) still sold some 33,000 vehicles, whereas Toyota and Honda TOGETHER, were some 6,000 short of that figure. Ford was about half as many at 17,000 or so and Chrysler was some 14,000. I believe the demographics are somewhat different in the US, however.

grant