Never had a Cordoba.
But I did buy a Dodge Charger...and then one of these...
Posted on 12/24/2008 7:19:49 AM PST by XR7
The collapse of the U.S. auto industry would be easier to take if the cars were junk.
That’s how it was the last time one of the Big Three (Chrysler) went belly up back in 1979. If you’re old enough to remember the Cordoba, you know what I’m talking about. It was easy to comprehend the failure of late ’70s-era Chrysler because Chrysler’s cars of that period were junk. People tend not to buy junk — end of story. Simple relationship. Cause and effect.
But today?
Never have the products of the Big Three — especially GM and Ford — been as good as they are right now. The incidence of problems, recalls, etc. is actually lower for some American-brand cars than for Toyota and Honda. By any objective measure, parity, at the very least, has been achieved. The cars are damn good. But they’re not selling.
How do you fix a problem like that?
The cruel answer is, it’s not up to GM or Ford anymore. They have done almost everything they can, on the product side. What’s coming home to roost is a deadly trifecta of lingering buyer suspicion of American-brand cars combined with soaring gas prices and an economy in free fall.
You can fault the American car companies for the first item — the unpleasant legacy of Pintos past, so to speak — but the other two are completely beyond their control.
Some fault GM, Ford and Chrysler for building too many big trucks and SUVs. But that is what the market wanted — until quite recently. The car industry does not turn on a dime. It is not like making a candy bar or a plastic bucket. Millions of dollars and several years (24-36 months is typical) are needed to design a brand-new, wheels-up new car model and bring it from design sketch to production. The surge in gas prices came upon us — and the auto industry — suddenly.
Those who fault GM, Ford and Chrysler for not anticipating the uptick forget that every single major Japanese automaker was feverishly working on gigantosaurs of their own circa 2000-2004 — from the aptly named Nissan Titan to the monstrous Toyota Tundra. But they got to the party late — and their exposure was minimal as the feces began to hit the fan. It was relatively painless to throttle back (Nissan and Toyota may actually cancel their big trucks) and re-focus on what they have historically always done best — passenger cars.
But the backdrop issue is the collapse of the consumerist economy. What’s forgotten amid all the hair-pulling and gnashing of teeth is the simple fact that people, in the main, were only able to “buy” cars — irrespective of who made them, whether Americans or Japanese or Germans — by signing up for a big fat loan on the easy monthly payment plan.
Often, few, if any, questions were asked.
Credit and loans made it possible for even average middle income people to drive home in $45,000 vehicles (SUVs and cars). Now that credit has dried up, the party’s over. No one’s buying anything — because no one can afford to buy a damn thing. Gas mileage is a bogey. The truth is most of today’s middle-large sedans don’t deliver much better fuel economy than trucks and SUVs. About 5-8 mpgs or so better. Big whoop. If the car in question has a V-8, there is virtually no difference. Minivans are obnoxious pigs — with typical city mileage in the mid-high teens, as bad or worse than a new Escalade.
No, the problem is we’re tapped out. We can’t afford gas because we can’t afford anything. That includes cars.
Which is why the cars aren’t selling. Which is why the $25 billion bailout won’t do much except temporarily preserve the jobs of those unlucky souls working directly or indirectly for the industry.
Until the broad masses are once again in a position to buy expensive consumer goods such as automobiles, no amount of bailout boodle is going to solve the problem. Trillions in hopelessly unrecoverable debt is going to have to pass through the economy’s colon first. Then, incomes — and income stability — will have to rise, so that people not only have disposable income once more but feel reasonably secure in their jobs so that they’re willing to sign up for a big hunk of debt.
Do any of you see this happening in the near-term future? Me either.
So, we’re left with the cruel irony of an industry that has never built better products that is on life support — and not likely to recover.
Because for it to recover, we’ve got to recover first.
And no one’s offering us a bailout.
“on a cold, quiet winter night you could hear that car rust.”
LOLOLOL!
Did you actually buy one?
My dad had a 70 Dodge Polara with a 383 and he traded it in in 76 for a Plymouth Volare with a slant 6. He thought it would save gas.
That car was a pig. It actually burned more gas and would do 0-60 in about a half hour.
After several trips to the dealer he coerced the mechanic to do a few not-so-legal modifications that improved things. It did 0-60 in 15 minutes after that and got the same mileage as the old Polara.
I can't agree with that statement today. It was the case just a few years ago, but not anymore. I drive a lot of rentals of all makes. The U.S brands have improved drastically recently.
“While domestics have caught up when “quality” is used as a metric, they still lag when measured using more subjective criteria.”
I agree, and think that in order for US car manufacturers to recover market share they need to dump all the old and familiar name brands. No more Chevy, no more Pontiac, no more Buick, etc. Fresh, new, different. It will cost a fair amount to retool and redesign, but it will be worth it in the end. And these changes need to be more than just cosmetic. They need to incorporate innovations into their new designs that aren’t available elsewhere.
Japanese cars are "better than American cars" because you think they are better. We've had almost fifty years of propaganda telling us Detroit sucked.
Half of the people I talk to about their new car today tell me about the space-age radio, variable seat positions, lumbar support, 21 inch wheels, DVD player for the kids...and cup holders. All, of course, critical elements in a four wheeled transportation platform.
(OK, as a square T-Bird driver, the lumbar support would be nice.)
Re, US standards; much of Japan's early momentum ('60s) came from being immune to US standards, including safety and topped with a tax break for the "utility vehicles" of the day (AKA - SUV's).
Many sixties cars (inc. Mustangs) were built to last about ten years, which was longer than most people kept a car. That's one reason they appeared to be of less quality than Japanese cars - the Japanese also aiming to remove cars from use in under ten years, recycling them by law after some quite limited number of miles in domestic use.
(That's why you could buy a 35,000 mile Jap engine and trans for nickles on the US west coast - they were literally free for the shipping costs.)
Also, The cars we saw in the US were specific to the US, try buying one in Tokyo.
(Hint, the absolute worst piece of crap I ever owned was a domestic Toyota of the mid sixties.)
Concerning Cordobas; had a Director once who had a company leased (big) Chrysler one year, my boss naturally went out and bought one for himself (suck-up), some dark magic in their attempt at matching Japanese electro-wonders caused the thing to stop cold in freeway traffic, when the outside temperature sensor burned out.
On of the replies to this post states that, regardless of actual ratings, US cars lose out on the more subjective criteria....well, Duh!
Those "subjective" criteria are the ones that make the difference in your head because you don't have to back them up with facts.
I'm old enough to remember the very early (well, first) Volkswagen that flooded US roadways. The mantra was that they were vastly better than any "small" American car, cheap, and never needed service. Considering that they were pre WW2 tin cans lacking even a gas gage, and that lots of them got left on the road due to that "no maintenance" myth; badmouthing US cars isn't exactly a new event.
Note also that we got a flood of Japanese econo-cars following VW's success, and note also that they morphed into the same big cars and trucks that Detroit was/is making fifty years later.
Not only did my '66 Falcon, 289, with air conditioning, get better mileage than any of the three Japanese cars the lady of the manor has foisted off on me, but her '04 Explorer gets as good as the last Japanese four door she had.
(And - it has required less service.)
Finally, until the economic downturns in Japan a few years back - the hottest markets for pre-smog US cars were Japan and Sweden, both sources of "better cars than we make".
Merry Christmas - no matter what you drive.
The real issue with American brand cars (Ford, GM & Chrysler not Honda Toyota etc) is that the quality was lower that the “Foreign” brands. My Honda Civic had 358,000 miles on it when I sold it. My new Oldsmobile diesel ran 27 miles before requiring an injection pump rebuild (not replaced with a new one). My mother’s Buick Century( they always bought Buicks) had a warped head at 9,000 miles which she paid to repair. At about 11,000 miles it was warped again in addition to requiring a transmission repair. Buick would not stand behind their product.
When it came time for me to buy another car, what do you think I chose. The Americans brands that I have looked are clearly inferior the the Japanese equivalent brands (not that they are perfect either).
GMC, Chrysler, and Ford have to recognize that they compete globally not just in the US. As such they have to go head to head with Toyoto and Honda and produce a better product. IMHO.
On another level, it is apparent to an outside observer, that their management has made several bad decisions with respect to their product lines and unions. They have caved in to the UAW and expect the customer to pay for their mistakes. I am a firm believer that every employee should get a good days pay for a good day’s labor.
Sorry to hear that. I’ve had nothing but good luck with mine (maybe I’ve been lucky.)
The only vehicle I owned that I would consider an all-out lemon was a Chrysler minivan I had back in the early 90’s. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong - a clunky transmission that would shift so hard from park to reverse you almost fell out of the seat, a slight gas smell in the cabin that no one was able to trace down, random engine overheating and idling problems. The last straw was when, on several frightening occasions, the steering wheel would suddenly yank hard to the right, almost sending my Wife into the ditch once.
From that point on, I swore I would never buy another Chrysler product again.
And, a note to my previous rant:
I will support a true loan to carry the automakers long enough to wring concessions out of the unions. Failing that, I'll be interested in watching GM and Chrysler pound sand without my help - after they've repaid the feds for the loans.
Has credit for those with good credit really dried up?
I have driven my fair share of domestic rentals. The driving experience is much better than even five years ago.
Having said that, I would still buy anything made in Germany over domestic products.
I’ve got a 96 Chevy Lumina that just turned 160k and a 96 Honda Civic that just turned 200k. Both have been excellent cars and both have several thousands of miles left in them. Each have had their little quirks, but both have been overall reliable transportation.
“I think people are harder critics of American cars because any little thing that does go wrong is expected due to their past track record.”
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This is an observable phenomenon, no doubt. Strangely enough some people seem to be more forgiving of problems with a very expensive vehicle than they are with problems encountered with a low end model. I used to sell used offset duplicators before technology killed the market and I was astounded to hear a man brag about a new German made machine that he had paid thirty thousand dollars for because he had run two million impressions on it and “only had to spend $1200. on it” for repairs. I bit my tongue because I wanted to call him a fool, if he had bought a used Multilith or A.B. Dick for one tenth of the price and had to spend that much on repairs just to run two million impressions he would have been screaming that he had gotten screwed. Some people have a seemingly endless ability to dwell in lala land and ignore reality.
But this can’t be! We are regularly assured on FR that Ford has never made anything that would make it home from the dealer lot without breaking down! I drive Fords because I am too stupid to know that of course.
You should always question what you “learn” on 60 Minutes.
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Amen, remember the big hubbub about Chevy pickups exploding when hit from the side? I don’t know if sixty minutes got in on that one but I watched a report where the guy was asked to compare it to the Pinto and he said something like it is probably “100 times worse than the Pinto”. Then when ABC news showed their test with the Chevy truck exploding we learned that they finally had to rig explosives in the tank because they tried so many times to get one to blow up that they were about to go broke. It was a big scandal that quickly blew over. Then there was the Food Lion fiasco. I don’t trust any of the TV news agencies anymore than I trust a rabid dog.
Hmmm, my Buick Lucerne runs great and is so quiet that, until I learned to watch myself, I would look at the speedometer thinking that I was going 65 mph and find myself going almost 90 mph.
My wifey loves her little Caddy. It has a great turning radius and runs flawlessly.
Neither of us have done anything other than routine, scheduled maintenance on the cars.
Never had a Cordoba.
But I did buy a Dodge Charger...and then one of these...
Wrong.
“The Cars Were Never Better...”
Still not saying much.
Sorry the little 3 are finally dead to me, because of the UAW.
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