Angry Ford dealer in SC calls imports "rice ready...not road ready"

Surely there must be a small practical American made car?

 

Maybe as he shops there himself, he see the customers and watches them get into foreign vehicles? The people who shop at walmart are a HUGE customer base. Why not tell them to get their act together and to start buying American cars again. I don't think he was insulting them, I think he just wanted to catch their attention.

There's a lot of ways to look at this. Too many people here got defensive and looked at this poorly in my opinion

 

I know I'm probably going to get bashed, but my ex drove a G5, and although I hate her now, the car was actually pretty nice.

MPG for the 2009 is 29-30, where as the Corolla's MPG is 26-30 MPG.

You only have two doors instead of four, but theres a second row of seats. You have a slightly bigger powerplant, and I feel the interior is much nicer than a similar priced corolla. They're both within about a hundred dollars of each other as well, and with the economy as is, in the US, you could most likely have the G5 for less than the corolla. The G5 is also much more appealing to the eyes.

Then again, I tolerate a lot, so I'm cool with both foreign and domestics and I'm not going to add to the fodder of this argument. American cars have had such a bad rap for such a long time now it seems no matter what they produce people find a way to hate them.

I've heard people making fun of the new corvette, praising NISSAN's GTR... while people are voiding warranties just by pressing a button inside of them. Welcome to the world of the engineer. Lots of brains, little common sense

 

Just one correction, Corollas with the 1.8-litre engine have an EPA fuel economy rating of 27 mpg city/35 mpg highway.
Thanks, I didn't even know there was a car in the same class as Corolla made in the USA. Of course with only 2 doors it lacks utility but the Cobalt is a 4 door version isn't it?

So now GM need to spread the word instead of putting down the opposition all the time. Promote the improvements in quality they are making and win some awards.

 

On the Chevy side I have the Cobalt XFE, made in Lordstown, Ohio and rated at 25/37 mpg and on the ford side I have the Focus, manufactured in WAyne, Michigan and rated at 24/35mpg. Both of these vehicles compete with the Corolla very nicely on mpg(26/35) and on value.

 

I like the Focus. I've driven one as a rental car on a long trip, and it was very nice: good mileage, nice fit and finish, fun to drive. My daughter drives an older Focus and also finds it nice.

Tom

 

My sister has a Focus and she loves it (in as much as she loves any car) especially after she had a Ford Festiva which was crap. I wonder if the Focus we get here comes from USA or Europe? I don't think it's made here.

Thanks Malorn for your answer, I really didn't know of a US made car that was in a similar class to Corolla. I thought GM and Ford imported them to the US from Europe.

 

The international spec Focus (3rd Gen) is assembled in 8 plants around the world. I suspect Australia gets theirs from the Philippines. In 2010 Ford will start assembling the Focus in Campbellfield, Australia.

Ford and GM have products that match or beat the Japanese in all but two categories; minivans and hybrid sedans. However they still have a perception problem among buyers.

The vast majority of Ford and GM products are assembled in the US. They import very little from Europe.

 

Two great articles:

Warren Brown - Perceptions of Detroit Are Miles From Reality - washingtonpost.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/15/opinion/15kristol.html?_r=1

 

1. there a quite a few "American" vehicles that have higher imported content than Toyota, Honda or Nissan.

2. GM, Ford and Chrysler don't give a crap about American workers. They would love to build all of their cars in in Mali, Bali, or Batswana.

3. The real problem is that the U.S. companies have had their heads up their collective asses for so long, they believe their own bull-sh-t.

4. It comes down to what we just experienced in the recent election. "if you put fresh lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig". The folks at GM don't think they did anything wrong - which really means that the first lay-offs should come at the upper echelons of the company. They all seem to be a bunch of smug elitist SOB's.

5 OK, the rant is over!

 

While your statement is technically true your implied message is not. The Detroit 3 build many times more vehicles and a much greater percentage of their vehicles in the US. The Detroit 3 also use a greater percentage of US content for the vehicles they build.


Toyota only has 4 plants in the US and 1 in Canada. These are the only vehicles that Toyota makes IN the US:

Indiana: Sienna, Highlander
Texas: Tundra, Sequoia
Kentucky: Camry, Avalon, Venza
NUMMI: Corolla, Tacoma (Corollas are also made in Canada)

That is 9 out of 27 models (16 Toyota, 8 Lexus, 3 Scion)



Ford has 3 plants in Canada, 2 in Mexico and 12 in the US. These are the only vehicles that Ford makes OUTSIDE of the US:

Canada: Ford Crown Victoria, Mercury Grand Maquis, Lincoln Towncar, Ford Edge, Lincoln MKX, Ford Flex
Mexico: Ford Fusion, Mercury Milan, Lincoln MKZ

The Ford F-Series is made in one plant in Canada, one in Mexico, and 3 in the US.

That is 10 out of 25 models (15 Ford, 5 Mercury, 5 Lincoln)

 

It's sad that you actually believe your posts. More than a billion $ a week is "exported" back to Japan every week. Time to open up your eyes.

 

so that's not whining. right i think the dealership has all the rights to whine but not the detroit's big 3. i'm not a business analyst or specialist or enterpreneur or whatever. i'm, or we're just a whole bunch of little ordinary american citizens that luckily still work a regular job, have a family of support, live a normal everyday life etc. i dont really care about whatever numbers u have. all i see is the 3 BIG american automakers are asking the government for help. and why are they doing that? because they're losing money. why are they losing money? they're losing business because import automakers took all the business from them. why is that? because their products are just not good enough to be competitive. how come toyota, honda, and nissan dont have this kind of problem? how come GM, chrysler, and ford is in deep trouble? i think that has something to do with their products no? american consumer are not stupid. they shop around and make their decision. lots of them buy imports because they just feel they're nicer, more reliable cars. i've been hearing lots of "my ford has 350k miles and still running strong" crap. your ford could be a reliable car but how many unreliable fords are out there? the imports are building their reputation of being "reliable" over time. long periods of time. not just 2 or 3 years.
detriot's strategy is funny too. what's the point of having a pontiac G5 and a chevy cobalt. a pontiac G3 and an chevy aveo? a dodge nitro and a jeep liberty? a GMC tahoe and a chevy yukon? ford fusion and mecury milan? what's the reason of replacing the "taurus" with the "500" and after 1 year naming the "500" back to a "taurus"? why did chrysler spend money to make the "aspen and durango hybrid" and kill them after 1 month or 2 of production? why does jeep has the "patriot" and "compass" in its lineup while they're awefully similar? OH, maybe they just wanna do all these to waste money. oops they've spent too much, ok government, help please with a bailout. and yea i think its time for those executives to give up their private jets and give their company some minor relief.
anyway i just think nice product + nice marketing strategy = profit. that's what detriots lacking. call me a dumbass or idiot guys. i just wanna vent. My 2 cents.

 

With respect, your response is a non-sequitor. the truth of my statements bears no relation to how much money the Japanese are earning from auto sales. To give the devil his due, the Japanese auto industry struggled for 20 years to get it right. meanwhile, the General had his finger up his butt. The Japanese and Korean cars are what Americans would purchase from American companies if American companies made them. I'm old enough to remember the Datzun B210 (Nissan). Some of you younger members may remember the early Hundai's. these cars were actually crappier than the American cars of the time. Difference was, the Asian manufacturers learned from their mistakes. GM, Ford, and especially, Chrysler looked at cost saving - improved quality was only secondary.

I just composed a rather long response to the two previous replies. unfortunately, I accidentally lost the reply before I had a chance to post it. Being inherently lazy, I'll summarize it.

The bottom line is that if the "Masters of the Universe" (see the sorcerers apprentice [disney - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD8HDta7Z_4 ], our wonderful finance industry wizards had not done their mortgage's "OOPS", the Auto industry crisis would have happened in 2011 or 2013. The General was/is like an aging dinosaur, dimly aware that there is a problem but bound and determined to continue doing what was successful in the past even though it's getting harder and harder to make it through the day. If the credit crisis had not come along, who thinks that the US Auto companies wouldn't be upping their SUV production to take advantage of lower gas prices.

All that being said, It is important to the country that GM survives. There are too many people that would be in a world of hurt if it doesn't. But these guys are bean counters, not Automobile guys. The product is largely immaterial to them. It could be widgets instead of cars. As long as GM focuses on the bottom line and the next quarter stockholder report, they will continue to die a slow (or now fast) death. GM is like a living being. It will not survive unless they get rid of the soulless bean counters and put a real Auto guy in charge. As much as I disliked his egotistical behavior, think Lee Iaccoca!

I'm not sure if that was a rant or not.

 

Nobody knows better than I do the mistakes that GM and Ford have made over the years, but the mistakes there are other forces at work in this situation. When GM or Ford design, engineer and produce a vehicle for the states there fixed costs are much higher than they are for the Japanese/Korean producers. GM and Ford have not only been competing against Toyota/Kia/Hyundai/Honda etc for the last years they have also been competing against the Japanese and Korean governments. You can deny this fact all you want but there has been massive currency manipulation, subsidized health care and pensions, subsidized r & d, subsidized transportation in the case of Korea, and in both cases a "closed home market" which acts as a cash cow producing a very consistent revenue stream.

Again GM and Ford have made many bad decisions, but there is also a macroecomic pattern developing between the Us and the far east. Our industries are being exported one-by-one, steel, 1/2 of autos, electronics, textiles, tool-and-die, tools, computers, rubber, the list goes on and on. My cell phone is made in Japan, does anyone think the average assembly line worker in Japan makes less than the average assembly line worker in the US? How about the cost of freight? How can it be cheaper to assemble a cell phone in Japan and ship it several thousand miles? The fact is that it is not cheaper and this is where the factors I have outlined above come into play. We have been in an undeclared economic war for decades and are just now discovering we are losing in a huge way.

 

I suspect the guy on the assembly line where your phone was made is paid the same as the guy in the GM assembly line, the difference is the Japanese company is well run. Lets not blame this on the workers, they are just looking for fair pay for fair work, enough money to live a comfortable life. Management use those workers as part of their factory, it is up to them to make efficient use of the resource and equipment. The key is to look several years ahead as well as next week or the next quarterly stock holders report, make contingency plans rather than fight fires and carefully oversee with easy reporting of problems. Companies like Toyota make no secret of their involvement in all aspects of production right down to their suppliers suppliers. They don't just seek tenders for suppliers at the lowest price and hope for the best, they go out into their suppliers factories and ensure they get nothing but the best. Toyota install their successful management system into their suppliers which guarantees consistent reliable high quality component supplies. General Motors have a factory less than 40 miles from my home, it is on an almost monthly basis we hear of a supplier to GM that is in financial trouble. Because they are left to their own devices as to how they run their business. No doubt if they use the GM model the management is over paid and the workers are being screwed.

 

I've wanted to respond to various posts throughout this thread, and managed to sit on my hands until I read them all.

I'll just say this:

I have owned (well, *leased* since I was never allowed to truly own it) one GM car. It was better than any other car that I could have purchased at the time, and I desperately wanted to keep driving it. With less than 30,000 mile on it - in perfect condition - it was taken back and crushed for my own good. The only other available car to replace it came from Japan.

To blame this on the consumer would be comical... if I didn't just read it here many, many times in this thread. If the American car companies had no competition, and we blindly purchased American cars, we'd be wallowing in crap. The only reason the American companies are making some quality, high-mileage cars now (and even - gasp - hybrids) is because of the competition. The Japanese took the risk. The HUGE risk. And won. The American car companies laughed at Toyota. "They're losing money on every unit!" Somehow, I guess Toyota made up that loss on volume?

I'd love nothing more than to be able to buy the car I want from an American company. And have that car built here by Americans. And if the American car companies had stayed ahead of the curve instead of sitting back and allowing the Japanese to eat their lunch... well, we might have been there.

Let me point out just one more time: The American car companies made a HUGE deal about what idiots the Japanese were for wasting all that money on hybrids. "They're too expensive and Americans don't want them." How is the consumer at fault here, exactly?

 

I think you misunderstood me, I am in no way blaming the workers, in the US the workers have given up enough. YOu say in the GM model, the management is overpaid and the workers are screwed, but it seems the common thought in the US at this point is that the UAW is to blame fo rthe plight of detroit.

On the cell phone, my point was electronics are no longer manufactured in the United states as that industry was targeted and destroyed several years ago. Now if you want electronics, you buy them from Japanese companies and they are manufactured in Japan or a cheaper labor market depending on the product. If it is made in japan, the labor market is not cheaper and they have to deal witht he cost orf transit so to me it is obvious that my cell phone could be produced competitvely in the US.

 

{...our wonderful finance industry wizards had not done their mortgage's "OOPS", the Auto industry crisis would have happened in 2011 or 2013.}

Ford, at least, was projecting profitability by 2011 before the credit crisis.

{If the credit crisis had not come along, who thinks that the US Auto companies wouldn't be upping their SUV production to take advantage of lower gas prices.}

If gas prices didn't go up before, would Toyota have lowered Tundra and upped Prius production?
There is the assumption that gas prices would have plummeted without the economy going down.

 

GM did make a mistake with the EV, no question about that. It is still widely believed in the industry that toyota still loses money on every prius sale but they make enough in SUV, trucks and lexus to supplement. It is thought that on some top-end Lexus models toyota makes more on each sale than the total cost of the highest equipped Prius.

The consumer is not at fault for buying a Prius, just the other 2.3 million vehicles toyota sells in the US.