Correct me if I am wrong, but until now didn’t the cars get tallied separately than the trucks as far as mileage considerations? That is why PT Cruisers were modified to fit into the classification of trucks so they could game the system and get away with selling more full size trucks without mileage penalties. Subaru did the same thing with the Outback,too. More proof that business will do whatever they can to circumvent the spirit/intent of the rules to feather their own nest…

Obviously you haven’t read my other posts, because I’m not a GM fanboy. You may want to do more reading before trying to pigeonhole another poster.

M1EK: Again, the assumption being made is that GM’s making a profit, or at least losing less money, by making really awful small cars – but that’s ridiculous on its head, because even now when people really WANT small cars, they essentially have to be paid to take them off GM’s hands.

That’s not what I’m saying. If you’re going to recycle your posts, it would help to make sure that said post address the point raised, as opposed to completely missing the point.

I’m not saying that GM’s strategy is to make money by making cheap, awful small cars.

GM has historically LOST money on small cars produced in this country. The main reason it kept production of the Cobalt (and before that, the J-Cars) based here was because of CAFE.

Under CAFE, if the small cars were not produced here, they could not be counted against domestically made trucks (until now, the real money makers for the Big Three) when determining corporate average fuel economy.

GM’s higher cost structure has prevented it from putting more money into small cars, which is partially responsible for the production of inferior small cars.

M1EK: You start out with the assumption that Toyonda makes $1K profit per small car sold. Subtract $500 for GM’s health care. Another $500 for their retirement costs. So they break even, right? And they still get the CAFE benefit that allows them to sell the higher-profit vehicles (assuming people still buy those things).

You’re starting with the assumption that retirement costs and health care costs are the only competitive handicaps faced by GM.

This is incorrect.

Work rules and job classifications – ironically, originally created by management, and now defended by the union – have also placed GM at a competitive disadvantage.

Over the past 18 months, the UAW has quietly agreed to competitive operating agreements (COAs) in the Big Three’s plants. The union would not have agreed to these COAs if the Big Three did not need the cost relief.

Mr. Gettelfinger does not care what Wall Street or union-bashers think. He has put his union behind this effort because he knows that the cost disadvantage faced by the Big Three is real, and that they must become competitive in the production of vehicles besides, trucks, SUVs, Corvettes and Cadillacs if they are to survive.

Also note that the Big Three’s factories have been overstaffed when compared with those of the transplant operations.

On page 221 of her book, The End of Detroit, Micheline Maynard quotes a former GM executive now working for Toyota:

“…because of the GM contract ith the UAW, he (the executive quoted for the book) would have to have three workers on a GM assembly line to everyone at Toyota.”

That sounds like a pretty serious cost handicap for GM.

You’ve also never refuted the quote from UAW chief Ron Gettelfinger, who noted that Ford would not make money on the upcoming Fiesta if it were built in the U.S.. Ford will make money on it by producing it Mexico, given the engineering and features that the car needs to be competitive (with the Fit and Yaris), weighed against the typical transaction price in that segment.

M1EK: In the current model, though, they’ve cut $2000 in production costs off the vehicle, but are only able to sell it for $3K or $4K less than the Toyonda.

Given industry lead times, the current model was developed and engineered before the more competitive UAW agreement was negotiated last fall.

Also note that the savings from that agreement do not take effect immediately.

So all of those savings that you are attempting to apply to the current Cobalt and G5 do not yet exist.

The reason that it was raised was because the readership is debating why GM is losing money.

You seem to have three basic schools of thought here:

-The unions suck
-The customers suck
-The products suck

Those who take the second position, and some who take the first, argue and imply that the products themselves are great. Several comments along those lines were made early on during the thread.

This is obviously an issue to those of us in the last camp, who know that most of the products do suck and can prove it.

Here’s the difference: I have evidence that many of the products suck, which supports the argument that GM sales are falling for some good reasons.

On the other hand, there really is no quantitative data to support the opposite position. The only way to claim that the products are equal is to resort to anecdotes. So if the presentation appears to be a bit stilted, it’s only because the pro-domestic camp has no actual facts to present in their favor. Since there is no survey that shows otherwise, it’s pretty obvious what a reliability survey is going to conclude before you even read it.

Perhaps the rating system is weighted for vehicles produced and sold? I would say the average Cadillac dealer sells 40 to 50 CTS for every 1 XLR sold.

Fair thought, but I don’t believe so. I say that because GM sells a lot of Escalades, and the majority of those sold got a three-star rating. (The EXT version got a four-star rating, but those sell in low volumes compared to the rest.) If it was based upon comparative sales volumes, there is no way that Cadillac could have earned a five-star rating.

And this passes for reliable data?

PS Sorry Bunter

It still make me question the tendency to pull the reliability skeletons (out of all the other bones) out of the closet at the first opportunity, even when it has nothing to do with the topic.

I think our personal treatment of them was notably superior to that which we received in return.
If they seemed to be a sympathetic victim it may be due to the weakness of their ability to defend their position.

I don’t enjoy slamming others but I do not appreciate being attacked by people who will not admit they have misrepresented what I said and seem incapable of even the simplest apologies.

Yours truely,

Bunter

Oh, I’m sure it is legitimate, but it seems irrelevant to the topic at hand of….well after 10 pages of this GM vs Toyota pissing match, I can’t even remember what the article was about to begin with. I certainly don’t think it started off talking about Dexcool and intake manifolds.

JD Power contributes to the confusion in the way that they report their data.

I’m frankly not sure how to explain the disparity, but it’s worth taking a look at it. Above, you saw the list of the top cars in the Vehicle Dependability Survey, and got a feel for how individual models perform. It’s pretty obvious from that list that Toyota and Lexus totally dominate it, without question.

Yet if you look at the brand-level list that supposedly summarizes the results, here are the five-star brands:

-Buick
-Cadillac
-Honda
-Lexus
-Mercury

This is quite confusing to me. Take Cadillac — only one of its cars gets a five star rating. Dig deeper, and you can see that one of its cars (XLR) got a bottom-of-the-list two-star ranking, while the rest get 3- and 4-star rankings.

What is hard to follow is how a brand whose individual products end up averaging at about 3 1/2 stars ends up with a five-star rating. On the surface, it just doesn’t make any sense. I can only assume that the CTS is extremely reliable, so much so that it can statistically pull up the averages of everything else to the point that the brand gets the top rating.

At the end of the day, though, we park individual nameplates in our driveways. In this case, the CTS’ reliability doesn’t do anything to help the reliability of an XLR, which sits at the opposite end of the scale.

It’s a matter of statistical dispersion. Some brands perform better than others, and some brands are more consistent than others. Toyota is clearly very consistent. GM, not so much. Look at the data, it cannot be denied.

Durability and long term reliability is what many in the car buying public seek. If Skooter is right and GM cars are every bit as good as their competition then why does that not show up in the studies?

Why is it that when PCH analyzed the JD powers report touted by Skooter the exact opposite is revealed.

Remember we don’t work for GM we are simply customers and if GM wants us back they have to be able to answer these questions or go out of business. GM made money when we (former GM owners) use to buy GM products and now that we are not they are losing money.

Like it or not, GM has to be able address our concerns to our satisfaction or they will never get us back and then GM is toast.

If quality and durability are even important to GM then why are they still using dexcool after all the problems associated with its use?

The data indicates they are not doing what they need to to do win.

Giving a kid a higher grade to make him (and yourself) feel better will not help him when it comes time to get a job. Buying a substandard product only tells the maker they don’t need to improve and INCREASES the likelyhood that they will fail.

I am the one looking at ALL the data, you are selecting the high points and ignoring the rest.

Well, this is a waste of time.

See ‘ya ‘bye,

Bunter

Skooter is stuck, here. He’s already vigorously defended GM against all naysayers, despite the vast mound of accumulated experiences of his friends, family, and everyone in the United States that shows that most GM vehicles are shitty and break down all the time.

So, he can’t just change his opinion, right? Because that would mean admitting to everyone that he’s wrong. You can change your opinion, Skooter. Try it sometime.

Over the past 2 to 3 years, I’ve bought 3 used cars at that were 5, 6 and 7 years old when I buoght them. And I got rid of my older cars, keeping one that I had bought new in 2001. This cut the average age of my fleet in HALF.

THAT is why I think JDPs VDS is laughable.

Skooter: “And is Consumer Reports still giving their automatic nod to Toyota?”

Didn’t they just stop automatically approving the V6 Camry? They still like Toyota. Consistency counts for a lot. That’s one of the things I figured out in SixSigma school.

One way or another, I’d rather trust an entirely new model from Toyota than take a chance on a GM. From the git-go, the Prius, which must have a significantly higher part count than any similar size car, much of which was entirely new in automotive use, has been one of the most reliable cars in ANY survey. Did you know the Prius pumps the coolant out of the engine at shutdown and puts it into an insulated reservoir to keep it warm until the next time the car is used? How many parts is that – which are in no other car on the road? Somebody at Toyota knows something about introducing new cars that work.

And I have a family friend who owns a 2002 Grand Am. The wiper motor failed at 65,000 miles. The dealer replaced at no charge. 2 years and 29,000 miles out of warranty. A Pontic dealer.

Great comparison.

Too bad it was the dealer who fixed the Grand Am (on the other hand, Honda Corporate instructed the dealer to repair the CR-V’s A/C system).

Also, I have a hard time believing the $50 wiper motor in a Grand Am is comparable to the $2400 Honda ate during the CR-V fix.

But, hey, if it resulted in them buying another Grand Am, the trick worked.

Unfortunately for GM, your story is the exception instead of the rule. Not so much for Honda and Toyota.

GM came within a whisker of bankruptcy in 1991. They apparently didn’t learn a thing from that episode about reevaluating their culture of arrogance, letting bean-counters dominate product design and myopic focus on short-term profits.

Sometimes an organization is so Bone-Stupid that it can’t be fixed.

It’s a dependability survey. Are you trying to claim that it was the New York Times that put the Dexcool in the radiators?

I think GM did pretty well in light of the obstacles placed in front of them. Left leaning anti US sentiment in the press for example.

And I have a family friend who owns a 2002 Grand Am. The wiper motor failed at 65,000 miles. The dealer replaced at no charge. 2 years and 29,000 miles out of warranty. A Pontic dealer.

There were 35 vehicles that received the top 5-star rating:

Buick: Century, Rainier, Regal
Cadillac: CTS
Chevrolet: SSR
GMC: Yukon
Oldsmobile: Bravada, Silhouette

Ford: Crown Victoria, F-150 Heritage/Lightning, Mustang
Lincoln: Town Car
Mercury: Monterey, Sable

Honda: Civic, CR-V, S2000

Infiniti: I35

Lexus: GS Series, GX 470, IS Series, LS 430, LX 470, RX 330, SC 430
Scion: xA
Toyota: 4Runner, Corolla, Land Cruiser, Prius, RAV4, Sequoia, Solara, Tacoma, Tundra

Notice the results:
-60% of the list (21 out of 35) are Japanese imports or transplants

-50% of the list (17 out of 35) is comprised of Toyota company products. JD Power counts Toyota as having 24 entries, which means that almost 3/4ths of Toyota’s lineup received a five-star offering.

-8 of the vehicles are GM products. 47 out of 55 GM vehicles received something less than the top ranking, which means that fewer than one of six GM vehicles received a top ranking, compared to Toyota’s 3/4th’s tally. (The GM figures exclude Saab and Isuzu; including them would have made things worse.)

-Of the eight GM products earning five stars, six are out of production.

-No Toyota products received the lowest two-star rating; GM had nine.

So please explain to me how this list gives glowing marks to General Motors.

(I tried posting this before, so if it shows up here in two different forms, I apologize.)

Yes, so your truck’s tranny failed and GM repaired it for you at no charge. So, what is your complaint? I would wager that Toyota, Honda and the like actually DO perform warranty work. Not at 60,000 miles. For that they charge the consumer. Or if it was GM, they “screw” the customer.

I see you feel that GM treats consumers just as well as Honda and Toyota.

I’ve got news: they don’t.

As I’ve already stated, every repair so far on the Aurora has been paid for by us. On a car that had just over 20,000 miles on it (though the warranty had run its course due to time – a matter of months).

On the other hand, consider our family friend who had a 2002 CR-V. At just over 110,000 miles, the a/c compressor blew. Honda replaced it for free. The car was two years out of warranty.

I am not going to change your negative attitude toward GM. Any data presented will be countered by your own collected (selective?)data. Keep on hatin’

Yes. I am SURE that is GM’s attitude. Unbelievable!

Funny how you take one person to task on dissing JDP when it suits them, and in the next sentence you do the same to CR (by the way they did pull the automatic assumption of good reliability on new Toyota’s, it always was earned, not given. Happy?).

Repeat, GMs AVERAGE vehicle is below industry average in both JDP VDS and CR. Toyotas average vehicle is well above average in both. Your still ignoring this.
BTW, I have owned 3 GMs and 1 Toy. None of either currently.

Look at True Delta also. They are early in the game and their samples are small but the trends are very similar.

Are all three completely wrong? How do three different groups using different methods all get similar trends for each company?

I am not saying ALL Toyotas are good and ALL GMs are bad. But the overall reliability of Toyotas (and Hondas for that matter) products remains well ahead of GMs (Ford is making great progress however). And GMs worst are as bad as ANY in the industry.

BTW-VDS includes NVH and safety data that strengthens the composite number for brands that are large/luxury oriented (see the text in the 2004? VDS press release). This is not a criticism of VDS, just noting why you can’t use it to compare vehicle brands outside their segement (Luxury vs mainstream vs small car). Or for that matter compare their data to CRs.

You are bailing in a boat with no bottom buddy.

Bunter