Posted on 04/03/2009 7:20:55 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The global financial crisis is suffocating the Detroit automakers, but the problems at General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler have been festering for years—even when the mighty "Big Three" were earning billions. Aging factories, inflexible unions, arrogant executives and shoddy quality have all damaged Detroit. Now, with panicky consumers fleeing showrooms, catastrophe looms:
There will be plenty of business-school case studies analyzing all the automakers' wrong turns. But, as they say in the industry, it all comes down to product. So here are 10 cars that help explain the demise of Detroit: GM and Chrysler need a multibillion-dollar government bailout to survive, and both could be in bankruptcy by summer if they don't meet tough government demands. Ford hasn't asked for a bailout—yet—but it's bleeding cash and racing the clock to turn itself around.
Ford Pinto. This ill-fated subcompact came to epitomize the arrogance of Big Auto. Ford hurried the Pinto to market in the early 1970s to battle cheap imports like the Volkswagen Beetle that were selling for less than $2,000. Initial sales were strong, but quality problems emerged. Then came the infamous safety problems with exploding fuel tanks, which Ford refused to acknowledge. Message: The customer comes last. "The problems for the domestics really started in the '70s when they were offering cars like the Pinto up against higher-tech, better-built Toyota Corollas and Honda Civics," says Jack Nerad of Kelley Blue Book.
(Excerpt) Read more at autos.yahoo.com ...
Hey! My first vehicle was a Chevy Astro minivan. It could do some killer donuts. Plus it was built like a tank.
I drove a Pinto during my college years. It was a good little car until I backed it into a ditch full of fermenting soybeans. The farmer lady that hooked a chain to my front bumper and pulled us out with her tractor was NOT happy.
D*amn college kids lost on their way home from a kegger. I thank my lucky stars for that lady, and I can still recall the smell of those beans and my lovely Pinto (bean).
OOOOPS. Didn’t buy her brand ne in ‘93. Brand new.
I think you make a good point that gets almost no play when discussing Detroit's problems. Certainly, the Unions and the Government shoulder much blame (and deservedly so), but management made some serious business model mistakes going back decades.
Certain Japanese, German and probably British cars retain more of their resale value because they're better engineered and better built with higher quality parts and materials. There's just no getting around it.
I guess the only question to ask, is... Did the Big 3 merely respond to what the American consumer demand - cheaper more expendable cars, or did they create the demand for the consumer? I just don't know which it is.
I agree that some very good quality cars are coming out of Nashville, and Nissan, Toyota have done a GREAT job of creating a belief in value and quality that Ford, GM, Chrysler squandered. I just object to the reporter laying the blame on SUV’s and Trucks. Ive got an 03 F150 four door and I love it. I had an 2005 and didn’t like it as well as my older F150. I still have the 2003 with 150,000 miles on it. Nothing but oil changes. GREAT truck.
Surprising that she didn't just pull the front bumper out of the ditch and leave the rest of the car still stuck. True quality.
Heh! I think bumpers were still actually made of steel back then. Of course, I could be wrong.
Toyota Prius. While GM was spending $1 billion to build up the Hummer franchise, Toyota was spending $1 billion to develop a high-mileage hybrid—even though gas prices were still low. After the Prius debuted in the United States in 2000, GM execs seized yet another opportunity to display their intimate knowledge of American consumers, arguing that hybrids didn't make economic sense and that only environmentalists would buy them. Today, Toyota can barely keep up with demand for the Prius, and it has plans to start building them in the United States.
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The Prius mid-size gas-electric hybrid posted February sales of 7,232 units, down from 10,895 a year earlier and 14.5% fewer than in 2007. Even if we take out the one day difference for the calendar sales days, this drop would be more than 30%.
Prius & Hybrids Suffer Cheap Gas & Economy (TM, HMC)
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Why is it so difficult for these 'journalists' to do a simple net search? The info from the article is pure BS.
Where is the Pontiac Aztec on this list?
I am by no means a car fanatic, as a matter of fact I hate cars. I am in outside sales and a car is just a big expense. But I know cars and I know quality and comfort and I definitely prefer American cars.
The American car companies built at least as good and for my money significantly better cars (more room, comfort, value) than the foreign companies. The biggest problem that they have is the fact that the big three are a welfare and health insurance provider masquerading as a car company.
None.
Designers and engineers are not U.A.W. members.
Many realized the issue, but turning the bean counting culture around was too large a task. Consumers fled and decreasing domestic market share made the fringe benefit and retirement parts of the business model an anchor.
I think some are/were, especially at Chrysler.
UAW designed cars?
They may have had part in the design of the Chevy Monza.
I would not be surprised.
Nice to hear your American vehicles are performing well. They should. I think part of keeping them going is loving them. In a vehicular sort of way. I talk to my car and tell her she’s great.
I had a very old Plymouth I bought for almost nothing when I was young and broke. Had to get over a huge hill to work in the next valley, coaxed her up that freeway hill every morning. Then one night my mother got in the car and started shouting what a horrible car it was. Next day, the poor car blew her engine on the freeway. Died in a cloud of black smoke.
So you see....
They were and in 1974 and after had substantial connection to the rest of the car for meeting crash standards. Trucks still have steel bumpers, I think.
You make another great point. I bet many US citizens are unaware of the profound impact Deming and others had on the quality process improvement capabilities of the Japanese manufactures.
That's the sad irony. Japan used American innovation and engineering to beat American companies that weren't in a big hurry to adopt some of the same measures.
"Didn't the stylist designers do a quality on the exterior of that car?
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