I didn’t even look at the news details closely about what GM and the UAW did.

Didn’t really need to – because it doesn’t even matter what GM did with the UAW – THEY CANNOT AFFORD WHATEVER THEY JUST DID! (C’mon, let’s be totally honest – the General Messup Corporation has itself painted into a corner, alongside the UAW).

More like stuck in a corner with a butter knife, in a jousting contest against competitors with long swords, actually….

LOL, happened even faster than I thought. I figured at least 1-2 weeks.

The strike must have been for show…Need details.

Next GM Death Watch later today.

Strike over, likely just a UAW bargaining tool.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070926/UPDATE/709260415/1148/AUTO01

It would be like a wife telling her husband that she is leaving and the husband using threats of violence to try and stop her. I don’t think a lot of people understand the basics of individual freedom and, as it’s corollary, property rights. Who owns who? Who owns what?

Not necessarily. It would kill off profitable sales. Everything sells at a certain price point. I can just imaging the conversation…

Chapter 11 Judge: What are we going to do with the 70,000 vehicles on factory lots?

Chapter 11 Judge: Ok. Go for it.

I’d buy a new, well-optioned (non-warranty) Silverado 4×4 for $12K… How about a (non-warranty) Cobalt for $4K???

Of course, such fire sale ‘pricing’ may just engulf Ford and Chyslerberus… It may be in their best interest to buy all unsold inventory and drive it into the Atlantic…

Ford and Chrysler are now being led by not-from-around-here folks who are not likely to just do like has always been done. They are probably rooting for GM to take this strike to the wall like Caterpillar did, in which case the pattern will sound good. But if GM caves, don’t expect Ford and Chrysler to simply follow along.

RF: You might have written “It’s about GM not being able to afford its tuition.”

The union, for all its faults and failings, is not the cause of GM’s peril, nor the solution. With a business plan that plans to fail, something had to give. The union is only the most obvious choke point in GM’s downward spiral.

The lesson here is not for the UAW: it is for GM, and they cannot afford it. The UAW will learn in its turn, but management must change direction first. The leaders have to lead: no union concessions can fix the rot at the top.

Good point. It seems that just like GM management, most analysts are clueless about reality. The reality is that talks went on for 9 days past the original deadline, and still no agreement was reached. People were optimistic when the talks were extended past the deadline, because that showed both sides were serious about reaching an agreement. That is why the strike is a bit of a surprise. The strike is also about issues that are tough for both sides so there is no easy solution. If nothing was reached in the 9 extended days, I doubt the strike will be over soon.

I agree with TJ, that the strike will last a long time contrary to what most people believe and that it will have a big effect on GM. At this point, we just don’t know what will happen. Ch. 7, Ch. 11 or will the Titanic keep sailing … hard to say.

When should I short GM?

Of the 3, I think Ford “gets it” the most—Mulally comes form the right background (engineering) and is benchmarking the right quality processes; recent product launches seem to back up Ford’s return to quality. I hope Mulally can do it—as Ford is the only one of the D3 I am truly rooting for.

Orian: You made my point—Hyundai has almost completly turned over their line in the last 24 months with nothing to show. Although Hyundai is vastly improved vs. where they were 15 years ago—the D3 should not look down at the 2.5% share brand that offers them very little in the way of learning other than a warranty scheme—they need to look up and benchmark the real leaders.

“DYNAMIC 88: I agree that the perception of quality is the nut that the Big 3 have to crack. But to paraphrase a post from a recent thread—Honda and Toyota are the quality kings from a brand perception standpoint—all other Japanese manufacturers are riding their coat-tails. Mitsubishi, Isuzu, Nissan, and Mazda do not stand for quality—-neither do Hyundai or Kia from the Korean side. Likewise, to say all American cars are junk flies in the face of the work Ford has done to reclaim quality vs. the quality issues that Chrysler continues to have.

Net, the days of generalizing on quality from country of orgin are over—-you really need to go to the brand level for the real story.”

What we have to keep in mind is most car buyers are not pistionheads. I agree that many Japanese companies are just riding on Toyohondissan’s coat tails, but I think that will continue.

As for the D3, yes, they’ve improved quality. That won’t be enough to get back the tens of thousands they’ve enraged over the years with their shody goods, and it’s really not enough to get people to try them instead of a Toyota or Honda. The D3 don’t seem to have realized yet that it will be a long slow process requiring more than a slogan.

(They don’t seem to have learned anything at all from Demming)

Bankruptcy law generally places the creditors into groups, and the members of each group must be satisfied completely before moving onto the next group.

The first group is nearly always employees, who get their salary for work done. After that we get secured creditors — people who have secured up their debts with assets owned by the debtor. Then we get unsecured creditors. Then we get bondholders. Last is shareholders, who nearly always end up with bupkiss.

2: No, but traditionally they have.

3: Undoubtedly

4: Those checks are quickly issued, so the window is very small.

5/6: Depends.

Irregardless of their current condition, they aren’t in the negative and they’ve released cars into the price range that they can manage and are moving metal.

I believe in the last 18 months they’ve managed to release more new product than GM has. I know a new Sonota, Santa Fe, Elantra, Accent, Azera, and the Veracruz all come to mind. There’s the Entourage (Sedona). The new Tiburon is coming soon in a rear wheel drive variant.

So while they may not be up to your standards, apparently they are doing something right to be in better shape than the big 3 are at the moment.

As for incentives, they’ve always had incentives that I can recall.

Long term? Who knows.

I do know that once they developed their own engine/drive train programs and ditched the Mitsu pieces they were putting in they could put the warranty on the cars and their reliability started going way up.

I also know that warranty requests at the dealership we purchased from have been completely hassle free, including one on my 2k Tiburon a few years ago that was my fault.

We just had the Kia in for a power seat switch yesterday. No problems at all. Oddly the service desk asked that we give them 10’s, but I could honestly look at the guy and tell him that in the 8 years we’ve dealt with them their service has always been a 10. I guess some practices never change (The dealership is a multi-brand dealership), but I can honestly say the service was a 10.

If only we (the US) were an exporting nation.

But hey, those $800M Buicks being sent to China will save U.S.

:)