One Down: Post Your Reaction To Today's Senate Hearing!

[zete]

Originally Posted by t-rex

I can scarce forebear to respond to the sheer idiocy of some of the comments I read on here.

Unfair trade? It matters not one iota whether the Koreans allow 5000 or 500,000 cars onto the Korean market. Koreans don't want American cars. Neither do the Japanese, nor the Europeans. Heck, nobody except Arabs and Venezuelans do for that matter.

Unfair trade doesn't have a single thing to do with this crisis. What makes some of you think Detroit can sell cars overseas when it can't manage to get enough customers in its own market????

Seriously, how utterly stupid can some of you be??? ARE YOU SERIOUSLY SUGGESTING that Ford could sell 300,000 Expeditions per year in Korea, but can't, because of unfair trade?

At exactly which point in your lives did so many of you wave bye-bye to reality? Or reason? Or plain ol' common horse sense?

The true reason most support trade barriers is because of the endemic attitude of apathy and laziness in this society. G-d forbid an American actually have to PUT FORTH EFFORT. Those of you supporting trade restrictions do so because it allows the pathetic slobs of this country (even those taking corporate form) to maintain the sloppy, substandard way they've done things for the past half century. The only reason you've got a good Malibu or a car like the CTS is BECAUSE OF IMPORTS. Without them, the Malibu would be no better than the Corsica was, and Caddy showrooms would still be all tailfins, frenched landau vinyl tops, and whorehouse-waiting-room interiors.

So don't go blaming Korea's trade restrictions on Detroit's inability to produce a decent, no less outstanding, car.

You should save your breath. I've argued this point for years. If it wasn't for the imports we'd have horrid cars.

GM, for example, had wonderful cars and quality through to the early 70s. But problems started appearing. First it was an oil crisis. But more importantly it was this "we know what's best for the consumer" attitude. This hubris.

And for two decades Detroit watched as things soured. They ignored all warnings, verbal and otherwise.

Here we are today. With a gigantic mess on our hands. Ironically, with Detroit building cars people should actually want. The problem is, they've said they were doing that for 20+ years and weren't. Sure they built the occasional one but many times they didn't. And so their customers left.

To get them back is going to take a lot of contrition. A lot of apologies. And proof they're serious about the quality of their vehicles. I've argued for a long while that GM should offer, as a minimum 5 year bumper-to-bumper warrantees on most cars, and 7-year warrantees on Buick and Cadillac. If they believe they have this quality thing down, the only way to attract customers is to back your talk with something tangible.

I so agree that what we were getting got worse and worse. I remember how bad it was in the late 70s and through the 80s when looking for a car. You had econoboxes from Japan, stupidly expensive cars from Germany and cars you hoped would stay together from Detroit. If that wasn't bad enough you had reasonably attractive interiors from Japan and "I don't know what they were thinking" interiors from Detroit. I still recall seeing the inside of an RX-7 in 1984 and being amazed at how nice it was relative to the Camaros, Mustangs, and Trans Ams.

Detroit was slapped upside the head by the imports and didn't wake up.

My question is: Have they finally awoken and is it simply too late?

Of all your commentary, your comment on the interiors was best: "whorehouse-waiting-room interiors" indeed.

[supermoto]

Originally Posted by t-rex

I can scarce forebear to respond to the sheer idiocy of some of the comments I read on here.

Unfair trade? It matters not one iota whether the Koreans allow 5000 or 500,000 cars onto the Korean market. Koreans don't want American cars. Neither do the Japanese, nor the Europeans. Heck, nobody except Arabs and Venezuelans do for that matter.

Unfair trade doesn't have a single thing to do with this crisis. What makes some of you think Detroit can sell cars overseas when it can't manage to get enough customers in its own market????

Seriously, how utterly stupid can some of you be??? ARE YOU SERIOUSLY SUGGESTING that Ford could sell 300,000 Expeditions per year in Korea, but can't, because of unfair trade?

At exactly which point in your lives did so many of you wave bye-bye to reality? Or reason? Or plain ol' common horse sense?

The true reason most support trade barriers is because of the endemic attitude of apathy and laziness in this society. G-d forbid an American actually have to PUT FORTH EFFORT. Those of you supporting trade restrictions do so because it allows the pathetic slobs of this country (even those taking corporate form) to maintain the sloppy, substandard way they've done things for the past half century. The only reason you've got a good Malibu or a car like the CTS is BECAUSE OF IMPORTS. Without them, the Malibu would be no better than the Corsica was, and Caddy showrooms would still be all tailfins, frenched landau vinyl tops, and whorehouse-waiting-room interiors.

So don't go blaming Korea's trade restrictions on Detroit's inability to produce a decent, no less outstanding, car.

When Honda goes to its government and asks for intervention on currency values, that's unfair trade. If Korea puts a limit on exports to their country, then we should do the same. When GM and Ford wanted in the Euro market, they did so by building facilities and hiring Euro workers. Korea and Japan should try the same here.

The only reason we have better cars is not just imports. The big 3 made better trucks before anyone made a serious competitor to their product. They made it because of competition among themselves and have done the same with cars. The Japanese came here with rust buckets with poor occupant safety and still sold their garbage. Better cars isn't the reason for a lot of their success.

If it wasn't for Daewoo going bankrupt, GM would not be as invested in the Korean market as they are. Ford's not allowed into their closed market. It has nothing to do with Koreans buying Expeditions. How did you get to be so stupid to think that it does?

[1G6]

Originally Posted by RamJet502

Its spelled N-A-I-V-E

(actually not so sure about the spelling)

They sold us out to foreign powers. There's no denying it.

[zete]

Originally Posted by supermoto

When Honda goes to its government and asks for intervention on currency values, that's unfair trade. If Korea puts a limit on exports to their country, then we should do the same. When GM and Ford wanted in the Euro market, they did so by building facilities and hiring Euro workers. Korea and Japan should try the same here.

The only reason we have better cars is not just imports. The big 3 made better trucks before anyone made a serious competitor to their product. They made it because of competition among themselves and have done the same with cars. The Japanese came here with rust buckets with poor occupant safety and still sold their garbage. Better cars isn't the reason for a lot of their success.

If it wasn't for Daewoo going bankrupt, GM would not be as invested in the Korean market as they are. Ford's not allowed into their closed market. It has nothing to do with Koreans buying Expeditions. How did you get to be so stupid to think that it does?

You have to realize that from the mid-to-late-70s to the mid-90s Detroit built a lot of really bad cars. This has returned to haunt them. They lost their focus.

Cars are the 2nd most expensive purchase most people do and when that purchase turns out to be faulty, require unnecessary repairs due to poor workmanship, etc. you have disenfranchised customers as a result.

And the reason the Japanese sold their cars in the 70s -- after a failed attempt in the 60s -- was that they had fuel efficient cars that actually were reasonably reliable. Sure, not compared to today, but compared to the fiascos Detroit was putting out, they were bulletproof.

From there the legend grew as to how good the Japanese cars were and how bad the cars from Detroit were.

Personally, I think a bunch of things conspired against Detroit. There was hubris in thinking they'd always run the show and always have a huge market share. I think they took their eye off the quality ball, figuring anything they put out there would be good enough for Americans. And I think they figured this trickle of foreign cars would stop as soon as the oil crisis abated and it'd be business as usual. But it wasn't. Word of mouth sold the Japanese cars, especially to those who had to constantly deal with their cars being in the shop.

If Detroit had built cars the world wanted they could have sold them worldwide but Detroit has only ever built a handful of cars others have lusted after.

As I've said, ironically, they now have or are poised to have a LOT of cars people overseas would lust after. Now they nearly have their act together. And the economy implodes. Talk about bad timing.

[TimR]

Embarrassed for them all to sit there and beg.

[squat]

Originally Posted by paul8488

I'm not convinced they deserve it...

GM:

Volt / E-Flex
Cobalt XFE
Malibu / Aura hybrids
Aveo / G5
Cruze
E85 compatible vehicles
Vue hybrid
HCCP technology

Ford:

Fiesta
Focus
Fusion / Milan / MK? hybrids
EcoBoost
Escape / Mariner hybrids

Chrysler:

Maybe possible hopefully not so sure but hopefully one day import-based small car

If I had two lifelines to toss, I know who they'd go to.

Chrysler's ENVI vehicles are further along than the Volt is. They also have a new V6 with better fuel efficiency coming up along with an 8 speed auto.

[Z16monte]

Originally Posted by 1G6

And two-thirds were built by foreign interests. Asians are calling the shots in this hearing.

Socialism looks better all the time.

Those 2/3 were built in socialist countries whose economies wuold be virtually non existant if they didn't export to this free market economy
Ed

[jbernie]

Originally Posted by squat

Chrysler's ENVI vehicles are further along than the Volt is. They also have a new V6 with better fuel efficiency coming up along with an 8 speed auto.

Wasn't the V6 cancelled a few weeks ago in amongst all the merger talk?

[doh]

Lou Dobbs just made a good point. "Why not get the Banks to loan the Big 3 the money they are sitting on from the $700 billion Bail Out?"

Sitting on it is doing nothing.

And subsidies to Transplants, to bring them to their State. his words "It is kind of fun, watching the States struggle with realility"

[gn4u2c]

, frenched landau vinyl tops, and whorehouse-waiting-room interiors.

Dammit thats my 2 favorite things about american cars !! White 87 Buick Turbo T with a Burgundy landau top and those big Ole pillow back pimp red seats !! Guess I'm just different that you Camry want to be drivers

[Mr. Burns]

Originally Posted by zete

You have to realize that from the mid-to-late-70s to the mid-90s Detroit built a lot of really bad cars. This has returned to haunt them. They lost their focus.

Cars are the 2nd most expensive purchase most people do and when that purchase turns out to be faulty, require unnecessary repairs due to poor workmanship, etc. you have disenfranchised customers as a result.

And the reason the Japanese sold their cars in the 70s -- after a failed attempt in the 60s -- was that they had fuel efficient cars that actually were reasonably reliable. Sure, not compared to today, but compared to the fiascos Detroit was putting out, they were bulletproof.

From there the legend grew as to how good the Japanese cars were and how bad the cars from Detroit were.

Personally, I think a bunch of things conspired against Detroit. There was hubris in thinking they'd always run the show and always have a huge market share. I think they took their eye off the quality ball, figuring anything they put out there would be good enough for Americans. And I think they figured this trickle of foreign cars would stop as soon as the oil crisis abated and it'd be business as usual. But it wasn't. Word of mouth sold the Japanese cars, especially to those who had to constantly deal with their cars being in the shop.

If Detroit had built cars the world wanted they could have sold them worldwide but Detroit has only ever built a handful of cars others have lusted after.

As I've said, ironically, they now have or are poised to have a LOT of cars people overseas would lust after. Now they nearly have their act together. And the economy implodes. Talk about bad timing.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if from the start the toyota camry had a chevy or ford badge on it it would still be at the top of the sales charts.

[doh]

Originally Posted by Mr. Burns

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if from the start the toyota camry had a chevy or ford badge on it it would still be at the top of the sales charts.

Do you rember the 84 Camary? Did you see one after 3 years in the Rust Belt? Did you ever try to hook up a tow chain to a lower control arm to yank it out of a snow bank?

No the Imports all had faults, right from the 73 Civic, so did the domestics. The problem was that the Imports wanted to succeed, the domestics thought "If we build it they will come"

They thought that way too long, through the X Car years, right up to the 97 Malibu/ Contour years before they realized something is happening.

[motorman]

Originally Posted by Black04GTO

It it just me, or is it painfully obvious what Sen Shelby - Alabama is up to? It appears to me he wants Detroit to fail so that his Alabama constituents will benefit? Alabama has 3 auto plants including Hyundai, Honda and Mercedes-Benz. I swear he is still fighting the civil war and this is his chance "for the South to rise again". This is pure politics in it's worst form...what ever happened to focusing on the common good for all?

It certainly helps that Sen Dodd is on board with doing the right thing. Write your Senators and Representatives!

what would you do if the auto union spent money to defeat you and other republicans????? if they would drop the unions he would sigh on to the bailout,pay back is a bitch

[blank disk]

Hey, what happens to GMi when GM fails?

[sebring96hng]

Originally Posted by jbernie

Wasn't the V6 cancelled a few weeks ago in amongst all the merger talk?

No, the Phoenix V6 is still a go. You might be thinking of the Getrag transmission deal.