Why do Americans want their automakers to die?
When the November sales figures were released I wrote the following remarks to Dave:
Once again the American public is showing its preference for buying just what it doesn’t need! After all their whining about how Detroit doesn’t build the fuel efficient they want cars, let’s see what they buy.
November Toyota sales figures showed that as soon as gas prices receded a bit, the car buying public stopped buying the much heralded, fuel and ecologically friendly Prius whose sales were down 48.3%. But they did increase their thirst for was the hardly fuel-efficient Sequoia and Lexus LX SUVs whose sales increased.
I don’t get it. The American public has demanded gas hogs from Detroit since like forever. They never gave any US small cars a chance but went immediately to imports for their more economical needs, even back in the days before the imports were all that reliable. Now they want the “Big Three” to just go away, even at the expense our already shaky economic situation.
The other day he responded (sarcastically), “And it’s all Detroit’s fault for not making more efficient cars!” (Like the Omni, Reliant, Escort, Cavalier, Focus, and Cobalt.)
I just don’t know how to describe the way American auto buyers think (if they actually do). The statement I made about the November sales reports is, I feel, entirely accurate.
And, yes, they blame Detroit. For building the only vehicles they would buy from the “big three”. Detroit has been trying to build, nay, SELL small cars to the American public since 1950 when both the Nash Rambler and the Henry J were introduced. And there were others even before WW11, such as the American Bantam and the Crosley, but these were far from mainstream cars.
The Rambler was very much a mainstream car starting out as a fully optioned (for the time) convertible and building to a full line over the next couple of years. This was to prevent the car from being perceived, rather successfully, as a “cheap little car” as was the Henry J. Then in 1959, Studebaker introduced the Lark as a full line including various trim levels in both six cylinder and V-8 models. Both of these cars were successful - for a time.
1959 was followed, quite logically, by 1960. Now Detroit jumped into the fray with all three legs, introducing the Chevrolet Corvair, Ford Falcon and the Plymouth Valiant. Both the Falcon and Valiant were mainline, front engine, rear wheel drive automobiles and were well built, reliable vehicles in their time frame. The Falcon was well suited for those more staid buyers while the Valiant, arguably the most advanced, best performing and roomiest of the two was more likely to be acquired by the individualist, being hampered by styling that was viewed by many as, in the words of a Plymouth salesman I knew, “an abortion”.
GM went a different route and came up with a fleshed-out, Americanized version of the VW. The early models had their share of problems which were addressed over time to become, by 1965, a very desirable car (unfortunately, by that time, the world’s most publicized non-driver, Ralph Nader, had murdered it). Overall, though, the Corvair sold decently for 4 years if only because it was a GM product. But none of the above mentioned cars sold nearly as well as the “full sized” cars Americans were so infatuated with.
And, in response the wants of power-hungry Americans, all these cars added high performance models making them just as uneconomical as their larger brethren. Nor, and this is significant, were they considered as competition for the imports. After all, a domestic can’t be an import. And those who, right or wrong, considered the American automobiles inferior, brought imports.
So what was the hot import that scared Detroit into spending oodles of cash on producing slow selling cars? The VW Beetle. Yes, VW had been making inroads into the U.S. automotive scene with a 36 horsepower, ill-handling (I owned Beetles and drove many a Corvair and I can tell you which one was the most dangerous), cold as hell on a winters day car that could seat four if they really liked each other. In 1961 the horsepower took a huge jump up to 40, enough to push it to 70 mph if there was no head wind. Or side wind, or most any wind except a tail wind. But they would get over 30 mpg and were well built. Or not. Depending on your definition of well built.
Seemingly solid cars before the rust set in, they had doors that closed with a nice ”thunk” sound, no rattles here. Of course once the hinges seized they didn’t close so nice. And let’s not go into how the brake and clutch pedals also seized so that once stepped upon, the pedals would stay on the floor, making forward progress difficult. As would a fried exhaust valve on #3 cylinder. Ever try to drive a freeway in a 40 hp car with one dead hole? I did more than once as this was a common occurrence at anything over 30,000 miles.
They could go longer with proper driving and constant, like every 3,000 miles maintenance services, including valve adjustment. Meanwhile, most American cars had hydraulic valve lifters that needed no adjustment and the one high sales volume U.S. built engine that did have mechanical (needing adjustment) lifters, the Chrysler Corp. slant six would run forever for their owners, most of whom never took them in for the prescribed 15,000 mile valve adjustments.
The Japanese at this time were not known for making very good cars. In fact they were not known for making anything good, just cheap. In the late 50s, they started making a name for themselves with (at first mostly unreliable) transistor radios and cameras. Into the 60s, these were the products that built Japans reputation for making quality products. It would the 70s before they started making real inroads into the U.S. auto scene. And the later 80s before the mostly undeserved reputation for reliability came to the fore.
I would read road tests where the “journalists” preferred the Japanese cars because their heater switches had a better feel. I would read Consumers Reports information on how reliable their foreign cars were based on results of readers’ data. If one were to actually read the comments provided along with the graphs, one would understand just how biased the data was. I have known people that would just abuse the heck out of their American iron and lovingly maintain their imports and then express their dislike of the American cars. And yet, until the 90s at least, when it came down to which car would be most likely to get you where you were going, it would be the American car.
So how do I qualify to convey this testimonial as fact? 25 years as service advisor and/or manager in American and import dealerships. I am talking about Chrysler, GM, VW, Hyundai, BMW, Mercedes, Mazda, Porsche, Audi, Fiat, Peugeot, Range Rover and Honda not to mention used car work that covered every brand and a year in an independent import garage. I can avow to the fact that the perception an import owner holds of his/her car is entirely different that that of an American car owner.
So how do these 1,245 words explain why the American public is willing to allow our automobile industry go belly up? How the fact that thousands upon thousands of honest, hard-working American people will be unemployed is unimportant? That such action will only serve to exacerbate our already overwhelming healthcare crisis? I wish I had the answers. All I know is that we are in a deepening financial predicament and the paltry sum currently pledged to the auto industry will be like a drop in Lake Erie before we are through. We must keep the dregs that remain of our once omnipotent industrial base alive if we are not to be immersed in a depression that will make the 1930s but a footnote in the history of the United States of America.
I just wonder if also, the movie “Tucker” based on the launch of the ill-fated car of the same name, gived a impression then Tucker was killed mainly by the “Big 3″ (which aren’t the only suspects by the way) and they wanted to see the “Big 3″ failing as the revenge of Tucker? Maybe I imagined too much.
As for these “journalists”, I guess they are the champions of “reverse racism”/”positive discrimination” I presume? If an american car have heather/AC switch as comfortable then a Japanese one, they’ll still find a way to grudge against it. If not, I guess some lobbying and bribes in journalists offices had played a role as well.
If the next-gen Accords and Camrys grow even more bigger, longer and wider to be transformed into big gas hogs, I guess they could probably close their eyes. Or even the unthinkable, if they do some permanent layoffs at the Georgetown KY, Marysville OH, Cambridge ONT, will the journalists react by saying “Said it’s ain’t so, Joe!”? (Btw, Sony annonced some news about layoffs http://gizmodo.com/5123388/what-major-divisions-is-sony-shuttering-next-month not only from temporairy jobs but permanent jobs as well, what’s currently impossible today at Toyota and Honda could became true tomorrow), remember then Nissan faced once the door of death if Renault didn’t rescued them.
A memo to them, is a quote from Ron Tonkin then I saw on Autoextremist, owner of various car dealers in Portland, Oregon:
“If Detroit ‘closes down,’ then thousands are out of work and no one will buy Toyotas or anything else. “
On a off-topic note, Ford also worked on another project, a FWD car the Cardinal but Iacocca dropped the project for the US, however the development continued in Europe and became the Taunus
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mazdamiata/1475922360/
http://flickr.com/photos/hugo90/2085288480/
we can wonder what if they decided to give the green light for North America,
Points well taken, but the memory of a bad car lives on for a long time. May I remind you:
The Chevy Vega with it’s aluminum engine and huge plume of blue smoke out the tailpipe
The Ford Pinto, also known as the 4 passenger oven
Ever had an Oldsmobile diesel? Wonder why the American public is so sour on diesels? Enough said.
The GM Turbo Hydramatic 200 transmission
Chrysler’s own A604 and the LONG, long time they took to make it even halfway decent
The Chevy Citation and variants
The rusty old Volares and Aspens
Just about anything that Mopar let go off the assembly line in 1957
The AMC Pacer, Gremlin…
When you pay a lot of money for a car that fails so badly, can you blame people for going elsewhere?
What was wrong with the Pacer and Gremlin that were worse than anything else in the day?
Anyway, I think the answer to you question about how people can not care about their own auto industry is the hugely apparent “Why should I care, it doesn’t affect me” attitude among the population. I believe that this is an attitude which if unchecked will ultimately lead to the downfall of countries as a social, political and economic power. It’s happened through history – why would the result be any different this time? I wonder too, how people can not only not care but actively hope for the downfall of their own major industries. It’s insane! Not to mention their lack of concern for the human costs. Some of the things I’ve read border on cruel.
How about the Yugo? How about any Italian car with steel bodies (in a quiet garage you can hear them rust)? Speaking of rust, how about the Japanese cars of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s? How about the British cars of the 50’s through the 60’s? With their electrical systems that wouldn’t work if there was dew on the lilies. I speaking of not only getting the spark to the plugs but also minor things like lights, horns and, oh yes, W/S wipers that wouldn’t work when it rained but were just fine in dry weather. Let’s check the VW Rabbits from 1975 into the early 80’s. The only examples of those cars that did not experience terribly expensive fuse box malfunctions were the 1980 and later U.S. built models (I was a VW service advisor and shop dispatcher back then and know from where I speak). Subaru’s that blew their head gaskets on nearly a yearly basis. VW diesel head gaskets (almost as bad on cars that were used for short trips). Mitsubishi’s that spat out their timing chains to the detriment of their valve train and their owners’ wallets. Corollas that would stall in the wet due to their ignition lead shorting out to the distributor housings. And let’s not forget those wonderful, Japanese carburetors that wore out around 50 to 70,000 miles and were very often beyond repair. But you could get a replacement for $800.00 at a time when American carbs were anywhere from $75 to $200 and seldom required replacement. And these were a Japanese auto industry wide problem up until they went to fuel injection. Four cylinder Mazda head gaskets. How about Mazda rotary engines that regularly destroyed themselves. Back in the winter of 78 – 79 we had some sitting at the dealership so long they were literally buried in the snow piles for 2 – 3 months waiting for replacements. And these were the cars being purchased by the American public to avoid buying “American junk” (well, ok, I’ll give you the Yugo)!
Has anyone noticed that all car dealers, import and domestic, have service departments? Does anyone know that new car dealers depend on their service departments’ to pay the overhead for the whole store so sales department can show a profit? Has anyone noticed how many repair shops there are that specialize in foreign cars? Think they are all there because the imports don’t need to be repaired?
No car built back in the 50’s, 60’s 70’s or 80’s were as well built or reliable as anything being built today. U.S. or foreign.
Why does the dealer seem to get off without criticism? What killed the US manufacturers are their dealer network. Their refusal to keep trade-in values reasonable.
Look at any Toyota or Honda when it comes to resale. Their premium is because of their dealer/financial network paying more for a return customer’s business. That reflects in the vehicle’s resale on the open market and in a consumer’s mind a Japanese car built in Tennessee or North Carolina is better than anything build in Canada/Mexico…I mean Detroit. The fact is; buy American and take a bath when you want to buy another one.
I’ve supported Chrysler from way back. Through the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and all the way up to my SRT-8 in 2006. Recently, I went to a dealer and was told of the wonderful deals to be had. To be had. No deals, no special financing, a pitiful trade-in value and no return calls to me. I did receive a quote of $5,000.00 off a $32,000.00 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. That is the same amount I would have paid just two years ago but they wouldn’t sell me that model because Affiliate Preferred Pricing wouldn’t allow them to mark it up over MSRP.
A bird in the hand is what Chrysler has with its customers. We are loyal. We love our cars and trucks. We recommend them to our friends and family. Unfortunately, who we send Chrysler’s way have to buy from a dealer network that is pitiful. 5 Stars…for what? Poor service before, during and after a sale? Sleazy financing tactics? Return on investment values of 25% of purchase costs? Please, when the Big 3 die it won’t be because people don’t like those US cars and trucks, it will because they don’t want to hassle with the surviving dealer networks and poor resale value of their vehicles. Just wait two years and get whatever model for 75% off retail!
The dealer network is most certainly a PART of the problem. I worked at them for 25 years and can you tell stories of deceitful and unethical practices not to mention ineptitude on their part. That being said, I can also tell stories of honesty and good community relations from many of the same dealers. Nor would it be fair to say that any dealer is constantly just out to screw the customer. They are trying to make a buck in a very competitive and constantly changing market. It’s kind of like they may dupe all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time but they won’t dupe all the people all the time.
If one is to blame the rise of the imports on the American car dealers it becomes important to recognize that the greatest years of import popularity growth began when the large Big Three dealers started opening up import stores. Big dealerships in the “automobile rows” spending big bucks on advertizing certainly fed the infernal. While the importers did keep a tighter rein on their resellers’, the truth of the matter is that they were not all that much different than the American brand stores under the same ownership. Probably the finest effort to improve the dealership experience since the 70’s was the Saturn launch by GM. Now the Saturn brand is doing painfully poor and I really can’t say if it has anything to do with how well the dealers lived up to the promises made in November of 1983.
The high resale value (which leads irrevocably to higher trade-in values) of Toyotas and Hondas is due, and only due, to their popularity on the lots. More than new cars or just about any other commodity except maybe real estate and stocks, used car prices are driven by demand. In this day and age, before a new car dealer can afford to have a used car on its lot, there must be a gross profit potential in the area of $4,000.00 or more. The difference between gross and net profit consists of service, repair and safety inspection costs, cleaning and detailing (which usually includes minor paint and dent repair), lot fees (the used cars share of overhead) and commissions. And, if the dealer is to remain in business, some net profit. So if you are trading a Camry worth $12,000.00 retail instead of, say a Avenger worth $7,500.00 retail, guess which car will get you a $8,000.00 trade-in and which one a $3,500.00 trade-in even though their MSPR’s may have been within a few dollars.
Unfortunately for the auto industry, people have long memories for products that cost a significant amount of an annual household’s budget. When a customer buys a car and has a failure they tend to remember and not purchase the brand again. I’ll cite a couple of personal antecdotes: My wife purchased an Oldsmobile Omega and the car basically went belly-up with 90,000 miles. (We purchased a Dodge Shadow and drove it to 140,000 miles. It subsequently was driven for another 30,000 to 40,000 miles.) You couldn’t give my wife a GM product. My sister-in-law purchased a Toyota in the ’70’s and had some of the problems described above. She has never purchased another Toyota, but she did buy a Honda later and will continue to purchase Hondas. The successful foreign manufacturers learned from their mistakes. Because these mistakes involved fewer customers due to lower sales, there is less of a residual bias against these manufacturers for past mistakes. On the other hand, all of Detroit made a lot of mistakes that past customers don’t forget.
Point out to people now that many domestic brands now have high reliability ratings and high consumer satsifaction ratings, and they don’t believe you. Tell them that Chrysler’s productivity matches Toyota’s and again they are skeptical. Detroit and the UAW will have to move and change like they have done so before to survive.
That is the quandry. Why buy a new truck from the big three, when you can buy a used one a couple years old at a very reasonable price.
I know of people who have bought a 1980 ram pickup with a 318 that pull 24000 pounds of scrap metal 50 miles one way regularly. The tranmission has overheated they stop pour tranny fluid in it because the cooler isn’t big enough to handle the load and continue to drive it.
They paid 200-400 dollars.
However I agree their are people that the vehicle doesn’t last 100,000 miles. While people who know how to take care of the vehicle and fix things get 200,000 -300,000 miles. Some vehicles are babied, some are not.
Most people who are honest and take good care of their vehicle deserve a vehicle that will run over the 100,000 miles. The dealers have to help those people that have had problems. Except for those that never take care of their vehicle, how many people do this and blame the auto maker.
The quality problem can only be fixed by the auto maker. If they offered free maintenance through the dealership that will allow the dealer to document maintenance, establish a relationship with the customer and build a more loyal customers.
This would give peace of mind for the older people, younger people. The parents in the middle worried about mom, pop, and young adults who know nothing about cars.
This is an opportunity for the big three to regain confidence, they need to bite the bullet and think what is the best thing for the customer. Chrysler has done this with their drive train components. They need to do it for oil changes, and all maintenance to make them the top choice for car buyers. Try it on one model see if it helps sales. Then expand it too all the models.
What about doing it for used vehicles within so many years, so many miles say a 2004 or newer with less than 100,000 miles? That would give people more confidence and incentive.
I know giving everything away for free doesn’t help the bottom line. Giving away maintenance to build awareness of the quality of the big 3 may build sales down the road. Not bringing in customers , retaining old customers, building confidence in their brands may mean they have no customers.
They also need to have their auto dealers stand behind them and provide exceptional service. Is there enough incentive for them, or will they just market overseas products because of profit? If they are only about profit, then its going to be hard to convince the customer.
Re John H on the VW Beetle, yes they had very limited power and were wind sensitive, but as an in town car they were great. I don’t know where he got the rusting story, I experienced none with their very well painted clean body. Oh yes those door hinges needed lubrication and the heater/defroster was terrible. The engine and drive train was very tough, I even towed a Plymouth out of our snow bound street once. The key to deciding on a VW for a young person back then, it was the only smaller car that you could drive at 60 mph all day without it flying apart, as the English cars of the day did. Many of us didn’t want an unnecessary large NA boat car with sloppy handling that used twice the fuel. A added benefit of the VW is it had great forward traction in the snow, just don’t expect it to turn corners well at too high a speed on snow.
However lets talk more recent cars. We switched over to Chrysler’s FWD cars in 1979, experiencing the valve guide and manual shifter link problems with the VW drive train. We loved Chryslers 2.2L 4 cyl that replaced it, but suffered with the unreliable 1981 Chrysler 4 speed stick shift that they finally replaced totally after two years and it was then OK. If I hadn’t found a mechanic who understood a manual transmission, most at Chrysler mechanics didn’t even understand the problem I was describing, I would have left Chrysler immediately.
Things looked up in the later half of the 80s, our Chryslers finally were requiring only normal maintenance. In 2001 my wife just had to have a 2.7L V6 Sebring, generally a nice car but for the lack of foot room on the passenger side. Unfortunately that 2.7L V6 is one poorly designed engine for reliability, not a typical Chrysler engine. Fortunately my wife doesn’t drive a lot and we are babying it with very frequent oil changes, we know sludge or trouble from a leaking water pump is probably coming. Our only real Sebring problem was front wheel bearing failure at 30K kms, how surprising this very premature failure many owners had wasn’t included in the power train warranty.
At about 2005 I was due for a new Chrysler, but what’s this no FWD follow on to my lovely mid 90s LH. The nice sized Sebring wasn’t for me with the limited passenger side foot room. Ah a new Sebring came out, but it can’t handle a full sized spare. Certainly not a North American road car, just a town car, lacking Chryslers past common sense design.
Yes there are the new Caliper & Compass cars, but how ugly and how crudely finished the interiors are.
That’s where we are today. Our current Chryslers run very well, but there is no follow on car for either of us.
If sadly Chrysler left the scene, we wouldn’t miss a company that no longer produces a car we want. Since we keep our cars 8 to 10+ years there is still a few years left if we continue to get good maintenance- probably our dealers main income now.
Fortunately there are others, definitely not GM; but Ford, Toyota and Nissan who currently have cars worth us looking into.
I got the “rusting” story by working at VW Dealers and owning several. Much of the rust problems were underneath, not all that visible to the casual observer. But very problematic to the owners. Heaters were abdominal at best and defrost-wise they were barely safe to drive in winter. Standard equipment for the northern driver was a short, plastic ice-scraper close at hand for clearing the INSIDE of the windshield. I kid you not.
I do admit that all these problems, including door hinge and pedal seizing were more prevalent in colder, snowier climates. Maybe the old VW Beetle was a great around town car in warmer climates but living and working in Wisconsin, I really can’t speak to that. Staying in that context, many of the problems with other vehicles, again import or domestic, were more common in the “rust belt”. Throughout the history of the automobile, many special service/repair bulletins (and, later, recalls) were aimed at vehicles that spent their lives in northern climates.
Yes I owned several VW Beetles. I enjoyed the heck out of them. I was young and knew how to live with their short-comings. The last one I owned was an early 1963 (my very first had been a late 1963), cloth-type sunroof I bought in 1972. I was a VW service advisor at the time and obtained it for $100.00 from my employer due to it’s needing major engine work. I was able to rebuild the engine working in the dealers shop with access to all the special tools needed and help of factory-trained technicians. And of course I was able to get all the parts at wholesale. The heater situation was improved by using a engine cooling fan from a 1966 model (higher capacity) and the fact that I was driving over 40 miles one-way at the time, most of it on highways were the steady high speeds helped keep the engine hot with plenty of air being pumped through those Model A technology manifold heaters.
But that was a different time and era. For me as well for cars. At my current 65 years of age, I could no longer cope with such a car. And now days, few would want to deal with all the problems of those crude-by-today’s-standard cars. But in the 60’s they sold like hot cakes.
My purpose in all this is not to berate a car that I myself purchased and enjoyed owning back then; but rather that so many Americans (including myself) would buy import cars sooner than any of the Detroit compacts. Cars that were better handling in the vast majority of the time, roomier, had better heat and WORKING defrosters, could get up to speed on the average freeway on-ramp and would get gas mileage within 85 – 90% of the Beetle.
In 1978, I acquired a 1962 Dodge Lancer for $100.00 from a beater lot. I kept it for a year and a half including two of the same Wisconsin of winters I drove Beetles in. It didn’t need any major work. Just a basic tune up with new sparkplugs, points, condenser, distributor cap, rotor and plug wires (those last three were still the original, factory installed items). I also adjusted the valves but could have forgone that step. Being a car guy I knew it best to do it. That was the only time they had been adjusted up to that point and probably for however long the car lasted. The car sat outside all winter and never failed to start and the only time it stalled on me was when I stupidly ran out of gas on a foggy weekend (I was foggy, the weather was fine). That 16 year-old Lancer was a better car than any of the new or late model used VW’s I owned. But while the early Beetle is revered, American compacts of the same era are scorned.upon.