The same could be said, “why is there a Chevy Truck ? Wouldn’t make more sense to get Chevrolet OUT OF THE TRUCK MARKET? Merge Chevy and GMC together, have Chevy the car line and GMC the Truck division? That is what GMC was originally for ! Besides, IMO GMC is a better quality vehicle then Chevy. Chevy has a rep of being cheap. Why not use it to GM’s advantage?

Then close Buick, SAAB and Hummer (leave the first two overseas, kill Hummer). You could even go as far as killing Pontiac In the end you would have a three/four division company:

Chevy/GMC – Affordable & truck division (i.e. Toyota)
Cadillac – Luxury (i.e. Lexus)

Personnally, I have higher doubts of Ford’s survival then GM’s. GM is making money overseas, while Ford is not. Besides, Ford just got started on the “revival”. It will be at least another two years before Ford is on the upswing, if at all.

The problem with this idea is that GM doesn’t build these cars in the hopes of selling such a high proportion to fleets. Rather, the cars become fleet darlings because the public doesn’t want them.

Fleet sales are a symptom of a problem, more so than a problem unto themselves. Fleet sales are an indication of bad design and poor branding, the byproduct of peddling cars that are designed around a price point rather than consumer needs. If the cars were improved and the public trust in them could be restored, the proportion of fleet sales would naturally decline as the retail sales volumes increased.

The only way to boost this retail sales number in a sustainable and profitable fashion is to build stuff that people want to buy at retail. That requires making the product/service ownership experience so compelling that customers are willing to buy these products without gimmicks or giveaway incentives to lure them in. You could rebrand the Impala as a Buick Rentmaster, but at this moment, Chevrolet would have absolutely nothing else to offer in its place.

Just to clarify, I wasn’t suggesting that you shut the dealers down. Simply, that GM shift its fleet sales to a single brand so as not to devalue all of their brands so badly. I simply thought buick would be the best as it is the most damaged already. It is true that buicks would have a lower resale, but so what. It isn’t like there are that many buyers anyhow. True, the rental companies might wise up, but isn’t it worth the shot of increasing their bottom line with fleet sales while only devaluing a small brand. It is better than devaluing the chevy brand, which has a performance (so much for pontiac) leg to stand on with the vette and the soon to be Camaro.

Robert,I understand you’re point I believe,but will the same vigor be put into an editorial if & when G.M. has a decent quater?

GM may indeed have a “decent quarter.” But that’s part of the problem: long term health sacrificed for shorter term gain.

I will post a laudatory article– indeed, kill the entire Death Watch series– if and when GM’s biz is on a firm footing.

I fear The General is a LONG way from that eventuality.

You can say it without saying it. That’s what marketing is for.

BUT, it has to be backed up with DYNAMIC PRODUCT.

I can see an ad where Waggoner comes on and says that to prove to you, the GM non-believer that we’re as good as anybody out there, we’ll sell you this Chevy Greatcar at a price that undercuts the competition. We’ll also give you a 10 year/100,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty, do all the maintenance, and gaurantee your resale.

Now, I know that some of you will chuckle at this and say what about the cost?

I say that you need to spend money, to invest in the company for a long term benefit.

Otherwise……

The problem is that at some time, rental cars have to be re-sold to the public. After 5 years, those rental-only cars wont even be worth the lint in your pocket.

Currently GM has 25% of the American market – and it’s a big market. That makes it a shell of it’s former self, but still the number one seller in the US. (Toyota has about 15% of the market -Scion and Lexus included)

So, somehow, GM still has a big slice of a big market. I know they will continue to loose share for some time, but they could loose half their share again and still be only a bit smaller than Chrysler is today.

Of course, it won’t take another 30 years for GM to be cut in half again, but it isn’t going to hapen by the end of this decade either. I think they have time to turn around. Whether GM can find management w/o their heads up their backsides – that’s another matter.

What difference does it make if you have the same management in tact.Or roughly 3 quaters of said managemet still around??

The moneys got to come from somewhere.And the newer models are an inprovement IMO.

Robert,I understand you’re point I believe,but will the same vigor be put into an editorial if & when G.M. has a decent quater?

http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-2838961_ITM

…though only 5% of the ad is (was) “mea culpa” and 95% of the ad discusses “what’s going on that’s good at GM.’

In other words, GM HAS admitted they build achy breaky crap vehicles…and guess what?….STILL nobody will give them the time of day (HAHA).

You ever think you are reading an Archie comic strip with regard to this company? Yes, GM is a joke and an embarrassment to anyone who has ever put in an honest day’s work…and that’s the Truth.

Your statement:

I respectfully disagree — There is a fundamental dishonesty about the domestics and their marketing, and they absolutely need to address it if they ever hope to move on and stop bleeding market share.

If one of them would flat out say “we sold you crap in the past, we apologize and hope you’ll give us another chance. Here’s what we’re doing to earn your business back…” AND slapped on a 10/100 warranty, I may actually consider looking at a domestic product.

Although this sort of mea culpa is admirable in a couple of different ways, it is probably not the best strategy for a company like GM. The first, and the biggest problem, is the fact that the public will take that statement and run with it – the typical reaction will be ” AHA! So you admit you knew you were selling us bad cars all along! You guys are the worst sort of lowlife there is, and I hate you!” This will occur not only among people that already dislike GM products, but will occur to some extent among the millions of GM customers that were really pretty happy with their ownership experience until that public mea culpa.

And then the press, sensing that there is now a story here, will work that mea culpa like a terrier with a bone.

I’m sure you can extrapolate out from there, in terms of ripples and consequences.

So, yes, there is some upside for GM with potential customers like you in terms of making such a statement, but there is far, far more downside for GM in the overall market if they own up to the product failures of the past per your suggestion.

With the exception of beefing up the warranty coverage some more, I think GM is probably doing everything they can in terms of turning around public perception of the company. It’s going to be a very slow process.

Now, on the product front, that’s a different story – I don’t think they’re doing everything they can (although it’s ever so much better than the huge product disasters of the past 30 years), and they really need a great 4-cyl engine in their stable, and some small cars to put it in, and pronto. But that is a much longer conversation…

B Moore – Autosavant.net

Certainly, its all about the product. But honestly, unless they have some super-secret, game-changing project under wraps at GM or Ford, i think they are both headed for the scrap-heap of Chapter 11.

Chrysler is setting themselves up to be the only survivor, as their new private ownership doesn’t mess around. They have made it clear that if necessary they will outsource 100% of their product to China and other low-cost, non-union regions, leaving the UAW and CAW twisting in the wind, IF they are pushed to do so. (And as an aside, I don’t think Chinese quality will be too far different from the crap Chrysler has been shoveling onto the market for the past several years. Why pay workers a premium if the end product is nasty anyway?)

I see no evidence of such steely resolve at GM or Ford.

I agree. But there is a way to do it, and a way not to do it, and associating a specific fiscal period’s performance with a vague attack on the product line and management would not be the way to do it.

I’ve said this before, but my strategy would be:

-Build a few GREAT — not mediocre, or kinda sorta competitive, but class-leading — products in core segments, such as mid-sized sedans and compacts. (This would be much easier to accomplish if the number of nameplates was slashed by 2/3rds. This would also require development of a class-leading 4-cylinder DOHC motor.)

-Make those products stylish and interesting to the consumer, so they have an additional advantage over the market leaders that tend to have styling as their Achilles heel.

-Include an extended warranty and free maintenance package to show support for the product, and to reduce the purchase risk. Back those up with friendly service that doesn’t habitually dispute claims.

It’s not tough, but you need to have product that is up to the challenge. GM’s real challenge that even if they understood the problem, as Lutz claims to have in the past, and even if they believe that something has to be done about it, it will still take them years to actually achieve this. I don’t think that they have that long to wait…

I respectfully disagree — There is a fundamental dishonesty about the domestics and their marketing, and they absolutely need to address it if they ever hope to move on and stop bleeding market share.

If one of them would flat out say “we sold you crap in the past, we apologize and hope you’ll give us another chance. Here’s what we’re doing to earn your business back…” AND slapped on a 10/100 warranty, I may actually consider looking at a domestic product.

Otherwise, sorry. They had their shot.

http://pistonslap.com/

It’s no wonder this company is on life support. Why can’t GM just build a quality vehicle? And why can’t they simply honor their warranty? I mean, a GM vehicle depreciates faster than the twin towers falling down when it is in top notch condition….to toss piston slap onto the conflagration only heightens the vehicles “junk” status.

Granted, I DO miss the quacking ducks of the Cadillac Catera (Opel by any other name). I mean, how does a company which is no longer “engineering-centric” and which is now “marketing-centric” even DREAM UP A YELLOW SQUACKING DUCK”???

And the duck was nothing new anyway…Europeans used to stick duck stickers on cars in the 70’s, so perhaps Rick Wagoner thought that was such a wonderful idea as to justify his ridiculous salary.

Rick, please bring back the duck, hear? There is an untapped market with legions of previous Renault Le-Car owners who would DIE for a yellow duck on their Cobalt.

BRING BACK THE YELLOW DUCK!!!! Your future depends upon it!!

To be fair, even if these guys were the best management team in the world, they would need to say this publicly. A lot of GM’s public rhetoric is meant to support the stock price, hence the need to make shortfalls appear to be interim or anomalous in nature.

So I don’t blame them for fudging the facts a bit in their speeches. The real question is whether they actually believe this stuff, or whether they’ve drunk so much of their own Kool Aid that they believe it, too.

Unfortunately, I’m inclined to think that it’s the latter. GM seems to think that it can manage its way to success through cost cutting (wage and benefit cuts, squeezing suppliers, badge engineering), but none of those things make the product more appealing or interesting to the customer. There seems to be no interest in implementing a serious, radical, focused turnaround plan, and now they are running out of time and money to implement one.

Never was a truer word spoken!

They need to be replaced but that ain’t happening and that fact is a leading cause of what is wrong with GM. No accountability at the top.

Thats it exactly and the total inability to face or admit the TRUTH about their mismanagement and lack of accountability for years. They always plead innocence and point to the 70s and 80s as the problem years. How about their cars through at least the year 2000.

They could still re-realize that it’s the Deming philosophy that is making Toyohondissan the leaders in quality. The D3 did improve quality significantly when their backs were to the wall, and they might swallow their pride long enough to re-learn the lesson.

It’s also possible to turn around perceptions, but it takes time, and money. Others have pointed out that Audi has remade it’s image, and given the image they once had, it’s somewhat remarkable that Audi can even sell cars in the US.

Or we could look at Hyudai’s turn around.

I don’t think it’s impossible for GM and Ford to survive, and even prosper, but it will take some long range thinking. It will take a comittment to still be in the auto business 20 years from now.

Maybe all the management should be replaced with Japanese managers?

Yeah, doesn’t this just sound like British Leyland about thirty years ago?