Most US made cars....technically speaking

[f_m]

Originally Posted by steveiez

DOES ANYONE KNOW THE PARTS CONTENT ON THE HHR? I KNOW IT IS NOT ASSEMBLED HERE BUT IF THE CONTENT WAS HIGH IN USA PARTS I MIGHT BUY IT.

Well I hope you have tried to drive this car before considering a purchase. I had one as a rental and it drove in a very disconnected way, like a tugboat. This is one of the reasons why they are failing.

[Sayantsi]

Originally Posted by texdav

USA car have been goping down hill isnce the 70's. They lost quality control and are having a hard time gaining it back. Saw the doumentray in which GNM workers that have taken a buyout admitted that for years they knew about defects such as screww not putin the veyhicole and still shipped the car out.I had three alternator in a role that when examined had blasting media in the bearings from being sabotaged when made. Of course they failed and cost me time and the automaker a repuatation hit.Never had a alterantor go out on a toyota or honda since.Sell crap and you get a reputaution and lose customer base.

American manufacturers never had quality control - that's where they fell behind. The ironic thing is, it was an American that taught the Japanese quality control as American companies ignored him.

W. Edwards Deming - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_Japa..._can%27t_we%3F

Dr. Deming is known as the QA guy for America that led to our superior equipment through WWII. Yet when he brought his ideas to auto manufactures in the USA they scoffed at him. The Japanese took his teachings to heart and walked away from the rest of the world on quality for 30 years. In Japanese companies, if a lot of parts has more than a small % of parts that are beyond spec, the entire lot goes back to the maker at the maker's cost.

Toyota proved its effectiveness with Lexus usurping Mercedes, and Honda with the NSX showing up Ferrari. The rest of the world is still playing catch up to these American-sourced ideas.

[banger]

You can point fingers all you want at the "reasons" for the failure of American car companies. There are certainly many fingers in that pie, with enough blame to go around.

Has anyone noticed that American executives simply CAN'T anticipate change in market conditions.

Once again, American companies are faced with a changing market. This time it is brought about by extremely high gas prices.

At this moment, Ford and G.M. are scrambling to rush Hybrids, and electric vehicles into production. Yet the Japanese are sitting pretty once again, having done their homework and already begun producing Hybrids, flex fuel, electrics, and such for YEARS.

Are they really that brilliant, or are our executives so DULL.

When the majors, "rush" products into the market place, this implies haste. Haste implies less than perfect products. I am sure many will simply write this off as "teething problems". But the fact remains that the Foreign manufactures saw the coming trends, developed new products and introduced them without having to "rush" production.

In closing, companies fail because the SHOULD fail. If you want to turn around Detroit, sell it to the Japanese, stand out of their way and watch the recovery, or you just might get run over !!!

[paultheprop]

I agree with every word that Banger has writen, companies do fail because they should, there is one thing that I would add - with good managment no company should fail.

I have been dealing with large companies for the last two years and there seems to be an endemic problem which I have not found anywhere else in business; mangment of large companies are very aware that if they keep their heads down and don't make any decisions they will not be blamed for anything and their workload will be lighter so they do this and to hell with the company. They know the tactics that will keep them their jobs until the company goes bust!!

Does anyone know the manager / worker ratio for Ford and GM of 15 years ago and now, that would make interesting reading.