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GM Discount for Everybody

#61
James I also think your facing another problem, you have to win people back. I switched to Japanese Vehicles (Acura) in 1986 after driving BMW's and was blown away at the quality and service. When I went to SUV's in 1993, I just found better value and performance, at the time in a Japanese Vehicle (Nissan Pathfinder) When I purchased my last vehicle, in 1998 I didn't even look at anything other then the Pathfinder.
In other words, exceptional service and performance had made me a victim of brand loyalty. I am sure it's very hard to get that customer back. Between those four vehicles (2 Acuras, 2 Nissans) I have logged 650,000 miles over 19 years with not one disabling service problem.

The other thing I've noticed is dealer attitude, I'm in sales, and I log a lot of millage, so leasing is out of the question. When I was shopping in 93, I noticed the American Dealerships were interested in selling Employee purchase (something not available to me) and leasing. But they weren't interested in calling me when they had a low millage used vehicle show up. I also got the feeling that if they couldn't make a deal that day they weren't interested. I am assuming they've improved.
 
#62
malthumb said:
There is no doubt some truth to your point, but to honestly believe that in a group of 70 - 100 people, a large enough percentage study JD Power Reports to make that much of a difference?
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Right but it's those reports (and I'd say more Consumer Reports than JD Power) that shape the perceptions among all people, even those who don't read those publications and studies.

And besides, if they had gone to JD Power and compared

  • Chevrolet Malibu
  • Toyota Camry
  • Nissan Altima
  • Honda Accord

They would have seen that the Malibu received 5 Stars and led in all four major categories. The others received 4 stars.
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Right, I totally understand that but what I'm saying is that Honda and Toyota have an overall better reputation, so given that a person doesn't know anything about the particular models they are going to fall back on what they know of the reputations of various brands. If GM as a whole is consistently turning out quality cars that are on par with Honda and Toyota for reliability then I believe that the public perception will eventually catch up.

brad cook
 
#63
burk48237 said:
The other thing I've noticed is dealer attitude, I'm in sales, and I log a lot of millage, so leasing is out of the question. When I was shopping in 93, I noticed the American Dealerships were interested in selling Employee purchase (something not available to me) and leasing. But they weren't interested in calling me when they had a low millage used vehicle show up. I also got the feeling that if they couldn't make a deal that day they weren't interested. I am assuming they've improved.
Click to expand...

I seem to remember customer surveys showing Toyota as a clearcut loser in dealership customer service so that's probably not playing into it as much as other things.

brad cook
 
#64
SMASH said:
This wasn't in response to me, but since it's an open forum I hope it's OK if I'll respectfully make these points in retort.



Utterly meaningles without context and comperable figures from competitors. That's like trying to spook people with talk like "That company had $2B in revenues last year but only paid $10k in taxes !!!" when in fact they were left with only $1m in profits, employed 50000 people, and would have made far more money if they'd just closed up shop and put their R&D and labor costs in the bank at even today's low interest rates. You can make numbers seem like they're saying something, in my example that a company is skating in paying their fair share or in your example that these sales figures are impressive, but without context they say nothing to anyone thinking critically. In fact, some of those statements of yours suggest gross inefficiencies in the GM system.
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I think his point there was with regards to the C-Bass' statement that GM is making undesirable cars. Although without more meaningful data, one can still propose that increased sales is proportional to baseline historical performance under similar market conditions.
 
#66
canopener and SMASH,

First of all, no offense taken. I enjoy responding to well thought out challenges.

canopener is correct in that the vehicles I listed and the sales data wrt to T, H, & N were purely in response to c-ba55's blanket statement that GM doesn't make vehicles people want. Those were straight off the top of my head with no time taken to draw comparative data.


FWIW - Corvette typically sells about 40,000 a year and his typically the top brand in the "High Sport" segment. To build more would require adding on to the plant. It would also likely require significant price and profit reductions and possibly dilute the aura of the vehicle. There is a specific population of people who will buy a car like a Corvette because they know everybody who wants one can't get one. At the same time, it is still priced significantly less than vehicles that compete in it's class. It's found sort of a sweet spot in the market.

Cobalt is outselling the Cavalier that it replaced over the same period of time compared year to year.


SMASH - Good point wrt health care not being a cost differentiator in Canada. Only response I'd have for that is that the control point for the cost structure is N. America, not specific countries. When I quoted health care costs being half a billion above product development spending, that encompasses US, Canada, and Mexico. If it were possible to separate US out alone (since that's where the health care cost issues are) it would be waaaay more than a half billion tilt. As an example, it is not possible to separate out the development costs of a Cobalt sold in US from those of Cobalts sold in Canada, because its all developed at the same time. The employees at the Lordstown, Ohio plant where the Cobalts sold in Canada are made have health care costs that are passed on in the cost of the vehicles sold in Winnipeg.

Peace,

James
 
#67
malthumb said:
FWIW - Corvette typically sells about 40,000 a year and his typically the top brand in the "High Sport" segment. To build more would require adding on to the plant. It would also likely require significant price and profit reductions and possibly dilute the aura of the vehicle. There is a specific population of people who will buy a car like a Corvette because they know everybody who wants one can't get one. At the same time, it is still priced significantly less than vehicles that compete in it's class. It's found sort of a sweet spot in the market.

Peace,

James
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James, I quoted you just to look like I had something to say but in fact only have a question to ask.

Does GM own a company that makes motorcycles that might be part of the discount?

(sorry to interrupt the discussion)

:D

Joe.
 
#68
Man, I want my old '72 Plymouth Duster back.

That car was easy to service, ran forever, got decent gas mileage, and was reasonably cheap to manufacture.

That was back in the days when GM workers were still getting a pension, too.

My buddy has an old Karmann Ghia, and he swears by it, the worst that ever happens is that he has to lift like "two" wires from underneath the door jam.

Have you seen the wiring harnesses on these new cars? It's a miracle and a half the robots can even put 'em together.

And then you have to figure out all the computer stuff too?

No thanks. There's a point at which complexity becomes very difficult to deal with.

Thanks to the Japanese, the "disposable car" is the preference-du-jour. Honda's and Toyota's are good 'cause they run for a while before they go belly up. But once that happens, there's no fixing them.

But, we all like our new cars, don't we? They're "status symbols". They're expressions of the big wang.

Did you ever wonder where all the dead cars go?
 
#69
Having a few models do well is nice, but you know which models and market niches pay the bills at GM, and that's not them.
GM sells a non-zero # of cars obviously. They're going to sell some amount of cars no matter what they put on the street, due to marketing and momentum. The question for profitability, is how to make more cars people are panting over.

I agree it's not that the designers and engineers on staff are incapable of producing desirable cars, but that the decision-making process, and the decision-makers, in place are leading to abject failure overall.

It's odd, because you're not afriad to put something like the Aztek out on the street. It's not that you're making all bland cars. You take big design risks, but they're just ill-conceived.
 
#70
c-ba55 said:
Having a few models do well is nice, but you know which models and market niches pay the bills at GM, and that's not them.
GM sells a non-zero # of cars obviously. They're going to sell some amount of cars no matter what they put on the street, due to marketing and momentum. The question for profitability, is how to make more cars people are panting over.

I agree it's not that the designers and engineers on staff are incapable of producing desirable cars, but that the decision-making process, and the decision-makers, in place are leading to abject failure overall.

It's odd, because you're not afriad to put something like the Aztek out on the street. It's not that you're making all bland cars. You take big design risks, but they're just ill-conceived.
Click to expand...

What, exactly, is your problem with GM, as a whole? You've had a lot to say about multiple aspects of the company, mostly all negative. Common sense (and time constraints)would tell me that you probably haven't studied all of the major auto manufacturers and the various aspects of how they conduct business, interviewed "hundreds" of employees from each and drawn the conclusion that GM is The Great Satan. More likely, you have only really put a lot of effort into justifying your contempt for the company. I'm just curious as to what triggered your hate. Did you own a Citation in the 80's?

For the record...I do not currently own a GM product and no one in my immediate family (2 parents, 2 siblings, 1 pair of in-laws and their 2 sons) does. I do not own any stock and have absolutely zero interest in the company.


Mike
 
#71
SMASH said:
I believe they only have 1% of potential drivers currently on the road, and they've got by far the most booming infrastructure and economy in the world. One country, half the world's population :eek:
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I think their biggest problem is there are no parking lots! ;)

They don't have the hyperinflated housing market, and they're not addicted to DVDs, juciers, new TVs, basses, amps, etc. that are crippling us with debt
Click to expand...

Yeah, they're pretty much just addicted to (pirated) computer games and karaoke.

I think I recently read an article about one of the credit card companies making inroads into China. They're slowly headed towards those things IMO. It seems like they are having enormous increases in consumption.

brad cook
 
#73
mike_v_s said:
What, exactly, is your problem with GM, as a whole? You've had a lot to say about multiple aspects of the company, mostly all negative. Common sense (and time constraints)would tell me that you probably haven't studied all of the major auto manufacturers and the various aspects of how they conduct business, interviewed "hundreds" of employees from each and drawn the conclusion that GM is The Great Satan. More likely, you have only really put a lot of effort into justifying your contempt for the company. I'm just curious as to what triggered your hate. Did you own a Citation in the 80's?

For the record...I do not currently own a GM product and no one in my immediate family (2 parents, 2 siblings, 1 pair of in-laws and their 2 sons) does. I do not own any stock and have absolutely zero interest in the company.


Mike
Click to expand...



I lived in Detroit and worked in the auto industry for about 6 years (as I said at the beginning of the thread). I'm pretty up on what's going on at all the companies, still. I do still own a bunch of Ford stock in my 401k, although if I were rational, I would have exchanged it for mutual funds long ago.

My antagonism stems from GM backing out on pension plans because the business is not operating at a high enough profit. Operating profit is supposed to be irrelevant to pension plans, by law.

And, I want American companies to be making great cars, and the industry and the region to thrive. When GM runs itself into the ground, that has a big impact. When they run themselves into the ground by bad decision-making, then try to get out of it by going back on old promises to people whose lives they already sucked dry, that pretty much pisses me off.
 
#74
c-ba55 said:
Having a few models do well is nice, but you know which models and market niches pay the bills at GM, and that's not them....
Click to expand...

Keep in mind I was responding directly to your statement "You're incapable of making cars people want and since you can't get revenue from customers, will make up the shortfall from employees?". If you don't mean something as a definitive you should not state it as a definitive. Third parties to the conversation may be prone to take them verbatim. You are correct that the decline in sales of the higher volume more profitable vehicles is causing much of the financial problem that we're experiencing, but that is nowhere near what you said in your post that I responded to. You phrased your statement to be inflammatory. I phrased my response to be equally inflammatory.

c-ba55 said:
I agree it's not that the designers and engineers on staff are incapable of producing desirable cars, but that the decision-making process, and the decision-makers, in place are leading to abject failure overall.
Click to expand...

I'll be nice and stipulate that there is a nugget of truth in this particular statement, but the fact that you chose to make it definitive with the "abject failure" statement would make it easy for me to pile on REAL DATA to refute your entire statement. I've done that enough in my response to your posts, so I'll lay low on this one. Please recognize that it is EASIER to disprove ABSOLUTE STATEMENTS AND WILD ACCUSATIONS NOT BACKED UP BY DATA, then to disprove concepts and tendencies backed up by data and/or anecdotal evidence.

Peace,

James
 
#75
c-ba55 said:
When they run themselves into the ground by bad decision-making, then try to get out of it by going back on old promises to people whose lives they already sucked dry, that pretty much pisses me off.
Click to expand...

I think this statement covers a hell of a lot more companies than just GM. Quite honestly, I can see this point (to the extent that I think it is accurate), but I wonder why you have stopped at just one company. You have said yourself that you worked for Ford...are they not guilty of any of the same things (I've got no clue on pensions, etc...but I imagine plant conditions and employee contempt are pretty much the same across company lines)? You also stated that you want American car companies to build great cars and succeed, is GM supposed to shoulder the entire American auto industry?

Mike
 
#79
kserg said:
Plastic manifold :rolleyes:
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My favorite was the plastic timing chain guide in the engine of my ex's late 80's Cavalier.

...my comment when I saw it was "You've GOT to be joking...what the hell where they thinking?!?!" (...the answer is at the end of the post!)

:rollno:

I'm also still a bit ticked off by the "planned obselesence" period of the 70's and early 80's US auto industry. Some of us remember the junk that we were expected to buy. "It'll break down in 5 years, and they'll have to buy a new one. They've always bought (insert brand name here), so they'll just do it again." Bit 'em right on the @$$, as well it should have. Led me right to my first Honda purchase, and it has not been my last, nor will it be.

:scowl:

Nothin' personal James, you're a good guy (and I know this personally), and I think that 99% of everyone at GM (and the rest of the US auto industry) genuinely wants to make a good product at a fair price. Sadly, the other 1% has been fouling it up for quite a while now. Bean counters are the problem, I blame them for the plastic timing chain guide: "We can save half a cent on each one that way...that translates into more profit!!!".

...strangely enough, same thing happened at a US company in a different industry, they're in Arizona now...
 

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