Posted on 09/24/2010 3:55:41 AM PDT by tobyhill
“Gee I really want to buy a car built by stoned drunks.”
That probably explains why nobody buys Chrysler crap and why they needed a bailout.
Ah heck, the robots do most of the real work anyway. Let’s hope they don’t get ticked off.
High paid drunks and stoners. Union work at its finest.
Who thought the lazy UAW drunks would change their habits when they became government employees? Our tax dollars were handed to the unions by BO so these misfits can retire with fat benefits.
True.
If you would like to be added or dropped from the Michigan ping list, please freepmail me.
Now I know why the cars are so crappy.
If they were not in a union they could be fired right away.
Mine pulls over and pops its hood every time it passes a repair shop.
And then I drive it until the wheels fall off...
Just last week, we got rid of such a car, the '92 Jeep Cherokee we had was purchased by an illegal alien for $300 as is. It's probably being used now for smuggling drugs across the border. He made an offer on my '96 Grand Cherokee too, but I have a few more years before its ready for that stage of life.
Being originally from those parts, I am hesitant to buy anything made from northern state union labor. Upon reflection on all those factory rats and their family I knew, for the sake of survivability, I wonder why all the plants haven't yet gone fully automated.
Knowing that the union mentality breeds sloth, incompetence and vandalism, so buying from Ford doesn't improve one's chances of laying down $50k on a "Friday car". Fortunately I don't drive much these days, using mostly two-wheeled transportation as a matter of choice. So while leasing would seem better insurance than getting stuck with typical union-made garbage, I need to deal with the fact that age depreciation is the real concern. (last year I only filled up the tank twice - another reason I hate ethanol).
I'm thinking the best hedge against getting a union lemon is to buy a popular used truck with few frills, made from a mostly automated plant. Then buy and hold.
Answer. Buy a house and get a horse.
You guys just wake up? In 1966,67,68 I worked summers at the GM Detroit Gear and Axel in Hamtramck. I worked on the line for about a month until I got ‘promoted’ to the Chem. Labs as an assistant. I was offered drugs every night on the factory shift. It was commonplace to see guys drinking ON THE JOB! When you went down to the cafeteria they had a red police light flashlight flashing and a mock=up of a worker behind bars for having an accident on the line. They had a serious problem back then. In those days you had to check the build date on anew car before you bought it to determine if it had been built on a Monday or Friday because the line was so blasted. Hell, this has been going on for years. The only difference is that now it’s on our dime!
We've got a '96 Explorer with 160k on the clock. It has failed us only TWICE -- an idler pulley on the main belt failed a few years ago, stranding me, and the starter failed last week. We bought our daughter a 2000 Explorer and we have a 2004 Expedition -- same experience with both of them. Outstanding reliability. I bought my Eddie Bauer Expedition when it was 2 years old for HALF of its original retail price, $18k (people were scared to death at that time that gas was going to $8). Best bargain I ever snagged. I guess Ford finally shut down the "break trailer" to get this type of reliability. We've owned two Volvo 780 series turbos, one VW Jetta, and a Toyota Sienna van. All of them were serious stinkers with constant failures, parts breaking, engines sludging up, blowing blue oil smoke out the back. One of the Volvos went to the dealer repair shop 24 times because the ABS would come on all by itself at low speed! They had to change out the entire wiring harness in the car to fix a short. I'll never buy from a bailed-out company. But Ford is definitely on my list.
But, hey, since they are on the taxpayer's dime, I think they are just emulating some members of Congress. Only, they're dressed differently...
Thanks for the ping, grellis, and thanks for posting this, tobyhill.
That’s why I’m a Honda fan although I do love my Silverado.
I sold my 1995 Honda Accord in 2005. It had over 200K miles and still ran like a top. I actually regret getting rid of that gem but sold it to a college kid for too little.
I’m originally from Michigan & we knew a factory worker who was a drunk but the shop could not fire him because of the Union. I am from a Union family- father, uncle & brother. The Unions priced themselves out of jobs & they ar no longer needed. They all need to be disbanded.
Where would Ford be now if GM had been allowed to fail? Where would some of the GM divisions be? Separate spun-off companies, thriving like a growing medium sized businesses?
Though it would be difficult to leave all of facility assets to deteriorate and crumble, the only reasonable alternative is to cut one's losses and move completely out of that region. After several generations of union thuggery inbred into the culture, installing new management with new labor contracts will solve nothing since the people there are largely lazy, corrupt and have an over-inflated sense of entitlement.
There was a program on the Discovery Channel that took a half dozen experienced and unemployed factory guys from Detroit and gave them a week to customize a car a certain way. The crew was hand selected by the Producers, they had all the tools and parts they needed, yet they managed to demonstrate for the television audience what hopeless f'ups they all were. Members would show up late, drunk, then disappear and hide for hours on end, steal things, take short-cuts, blame others for their own failures - it was downright depressing to see how much the union culture removed all of the character out of a man.
For one week, heck for even one day, these clods couldn't manage to demonstrate any qualities that would impress a future employer. Maybe the producers of the show were trolling crack-dens and under the bridge shanty-towns for the talent, I don't know, but it appeared that when they had jobs, they pissed away their money on tattoos, drugs and lottery tickets, because their lives and homes showed no appearance of anything more than a minimum wage lifestyle.
Moving out of the region would leave the deadbeats behind while the truly industrious and skilled would pack-up and move knowing that they would have to compete and survive off of their own skills, not by the threats and intimidation of the mob-controlled unions.
Still, building a plant anywhere is expensive and from a regulatory/tax/zoning perspective nearly impossible to do. I fully understand why companies find it far preferable to move their industry completely away from the clutches of our overbearing government and less-than-worthless labor pool.
well said
remember that the Reuther brothers got their inspiration for the UAW from their work time in Russia before WW2
That’s why I’m a Honda fan although I do love my Silverado.
All of my extended family has gone foreign except when it comes to trucks. Honda, Toyota, Lexus and strangely Land Rover. Except for the Land Rover and the trucks, no regrets by any of them. I love my Honda m/c, 100k zero time in service beyond regular scheduled maint.
The parking lot of one of my clients, if you subtracted the two trucks, 100% foreign. When I asked them individually why they thought that was so, and mind you this place is chock full of social-marketing liberals, they all believed it had to do with "American cars are junk."
You can only blame the unions and the Fourth Estate for that.
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