Ford spun off the supplier, I would imagine, because they didn’t feel they would be profitable. (Turns out that was smart.) You can bet that had they not done it, they would be criticized for having an unprofitable in house supplier. So damned if you do and damned if you don’t I guess? So, why is it even relevant to this article? (Maybe about as relevant at the Pinto matchbook thing.)

The bonus thing looks bad for sure, but maybe someone should mention that this won’t even make up for the 4 day weeks everyone had to work earlier this year?

Any industry that is large enough to lobby does so for their own interest. Is the quarrel that anyone lobbies? or that Ford is acting rational by lobbying for something for their industry? I don’t get it?

Re: Pintos and everything else – where exactly does the statue of limitations on quality issues run out? I’m just asking, since a lot of Japanese products were absolute piles of crap for a long time. Nobody would argue they are good now, but maybe let’s bash a rusted out pile of crap Datsun? What the hell? I think they shared the road with the Pinto.

Or the Crown Victoria where the gas tank is located in the rear crumple zone…

Seems the “F” in Ford stands for Fire.

Come-on, let’s be fair … Pintos were not representative, nor were they known to explode, they were known to burst into flame when rammed from behind by very large objects moving with considerable speed (and is beside the point. The case I would make, is why, NHTSA doesn’t control this via FMVSS regs.)

And, the whole Pinto, Vega and Volare, are from “not long ago”, and that they are somehow relevant and representative of today’s vehicles, is a tired line that begins to beg incredulity for any argument it is being used to justify…

For Pete’s sake, by now, the majority of the guys who designed those cars, and esp the higher-ups that made any questionable decisions, have probably died of old age… for public discource to ignore this fact, is akin to tarring any of the current VW line with the sins of Hitler and the Holocaust

(comment to prevent flaming: please note i am trying to illustrate a point, and wrote “akin”; i am neither trying to say that former D3 managers were on-par with war criminals, nor that the holocaust was due to poor cost-benefit analyses.)

(supplementary comment: who thinks that one reason we have so few high mileage pass-car diesels cruising around in the US, when europeans and canadians make liberal use of them, is in part due to this kind of “perceptual lag” where people, despite all rational proof, still harbor irrational fear (or in other cases grudges) that all pass-car diesels will never be cleaner or more reliable than those failed units installed by GM in the 1980’s??)

But they rather twist their own words and actions to make it appear that they are in a better position than the other two.

As soon as GM goes C11, they will rocket ahead of both Ford and Chrysler to become a very strong company in a few years.

Mark my words, the first one to go C11 will be the best off. And the longer Ford is in denial, the slower their death will be…but they will fail, it is only a matter of time.

Uh, “o-gay ound-pay and-say”? I think that’s pretty accurate.

BMW would.

I would be incredibly angry if Ford made a statement like this without it being true on the other hand.

But here’s a question: if they got paid for meeting a specific goal then wouldn’t that be a valid expenditure? What about someone who sells something on commission? If the company loses money but they still sell their widgets, do they not get paid? I hadn’t thought about it this way before now….
CEO’s and very high level execs get bonuses for overall corporate performance, thus insolvent company = no bonus (and a major claw-back, if I ruled the world). But if some guy works at Citi and gets a bonus, even a big one, for selling 401k programs or mutual funds or something, for example, shouldn’t he get his bonus for performance even if the company tanks?
Don’t get me wrong, I really believe the vast majority of Wall Streeters are arrogant incompetent jerks who deserve to be unemployed more than anyone (and I know enough of them to make an informed judgment), but I’m just wondering if the torch-and-pitchfork crowd isn’t going overboard….

Most worrying of all was the head of the Canadian Tool and Die Makers Association. Apparently, Ford, GM and Chrysler have NOT paid for work already performed for them by a number of tool and die companies, and the D3 are now going to China for similar work, where they are forced to pay pro-rata, not after the work is done.

So the D3 are currently stiffing many Canadian companies for work already performed, and the Association was arguing that if bailout money is to be handed out to the D3, then their companies should be paid first. Otherwise, they’re kaput.

I agree with the Association. Years of reading here on TTAC what the D3 get up to, their lack of any shame, and handing out bonuses when their companies are in the red, just make me sick.

Time to die. I haven’t met a Canadian in these parts who agrees with bailout for the D3. Now it’s just politics propping things up.

How do you say “Go pound sand” in pig latin?

Methinks the folks that got this undisclosed bonus
might not have been the ones impacting quality. Call me skeptical, but credibility isn’t a characteristic I associate with any of the Big 2.221 or their suppliers.

How much were the bonuses? Who got them? And for what specific job deliverable did they earn them? Quality improvement, meaning we now make sub standard parts rather than absolute crap?

Yes, and all the matches ignited whenever you bumped the box.

I would also like these articles to change ‘government money’ to ‘your money’. And why should we pay so that a few people can buy new cars for less? It’s a waste of resources and the loans still have to be paid off at some point anyway, in this case by our children. Let production meet demand and debt fall on all levels.

The real problem isn’t the current ‘crisis’, it was the last 10 years when cheap credit and huge debt that let everyone live in fantasy land. This is an adjustment that needs to happen and the sooner the better.

Is that from the commemorative spontaneous combustion match set?

Shocking!

Actually, as of today, 217693 rebates have been claimed. There is a great website, that gives numbers in real time: http://www.autohaus.de/cms/805659