Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Honda quality is not what it used too be. As a matter of fact last year they fired a group of executives because of quality issues and hired a quality "guru" to get the company back on track. The company was getting run by the bean counters.
The 2015 FIT had 5 or 6 recalls in the first year. Consumer Reports dropped them from 4 to 8 because of quality issues.
How does a smaller company like Honda compete with the major auto manufactures like GM, Ford, VW and Toyota? They have like 3 or 4 vehicles always in the top ten in sales for the month (Civic, CR-V, Accord). What is there secret?
Honda is not a small company first of all. They do make good cars for the most part, but lets also understand some other things working in their favor:
1) They get to sell nearly 1-million cars per year in Japan which is still a protected market for the home teams. That gives them a head-start and some extra money to play with that our domestics don't get. Ford sold a whopping 2,000 cars in Japan last year and announced they will close-up operations in Japan this year. It's just not a level playing field there.
2) They also do not have nearly the retiree pension and healthcare liability of Ford or GM, in particular.
3) Their employee wages are cheaper because they do not have union plants.
4) Their production is generally better in the US because all their plants are newer.
As time goes on some of the gaps with these advantages are shrinking slowly, but they still have a significant leg-up in their cost structure compared to domestic competitors.
Toyota owns a 16% stake in Subaru. the scion frs and the subaru brz are nearly identical.
I've owned a Acura Integra, a Ford Mustang. Infiniti G35, Infinti Q50, Infinti Q60 and a Lexus IS350.
My 1996 Acura Integra with over 170k miles was the most reliable car I ever owned! This was back in the days when "street racing / modding" was popular. My first car was a 1990 camry. I put that car through hell and back. Yet it still kept on running.
I got rid of the Integra 7 years later and picked up a brand spankin' new Mustang. Worst Car I had ever owned. Constant rattles, bad gas mileage, smelled like something was burning inside the cabin, pre-mature tire wear, burns oil, and Ford's excuse was "this is normal" or "we never heard about that issue b4". BS! I joined a Mustang forum and those issues were all the Forums talked about. lol
Got rid of it 3 months later and got a G35. Told myself to NEVER own a POS American car from that day on.
Two out of three are propped up by pick-up sales. I'll let you figure out which ones.
That's always been a fact though. Toyota and Nissan barely compete in the quarter ton market and they don't even bother with anything bigger than that. They know they can't do it. Toyota has the Tacoma, which has zero competition within the big three now and sells well, but that's about it.
Yep. Honda is a "big automaker". Honda does about 1.6 million units in the US. Ford is about 2.5 million. They just don't have a full size pickup to compete with the perennial #1, #2, #3 sellers (Ford, GM, and Chrysler pickups) on the top-10 list in the US market.
I own a current generation 6-cylinder Outback. Subaru competes by being in bed with Toyota. Toyota owns a slice of the company. Outbacks are built in what used to be a Toyota plant in Indiana. Toyota just recently moved the last of their Camry production lines out of that plant so Subaru could expand. Subaru uses a ton of Toyota parts and they certainly use Toyota's manufacturing expertise. If you're a lower volume manufacturer, you kind of have no choice. Your suppliers aren't going to do much special for you if Toyota is placing orders 10x bigger than yours. Subaru is up to 600,000 cars in North America. They're starting to hit critical mass where they have more leverage with their suppliers.
Subaru also competes on value. Apples vs apples, the out-the-door price on a Subaru is easily 10% less than Honda or Toyota. Toyota and Honda don't need to do that so that 10% goes right to the bottom line.
That's always been a Subaru factory. Toyota moved in to take advantage of excess capacity for the Camry. That production has moved out because Subaru needs it for Outback, Impreza, and the new 7 seat CUV production. Toyota was able to expand production in Georgetown, KY for the Camry.
How does a smaller company like Honda compete with the major auto manufactures like GM, Ford, VW and Toyota? They have like 3 or 4 vehicles always in the top ten in sales for the month (Civic, CR-V, Accord). What is there secret?
Reliability. Super adequate components. My Honda Element (115,000 miles) NEVER went in for repairs. I replaced the serpentine belt at 50K miles and could not see a difference between the old belt and the replacement belt.
How does a smaller company like Honda compete with the major auto manufactures like GM, Ford, VW and Toyota? They have like 3 or 4 vehicles always in the top ten in sales for the month (Civic, CR-V, Accord). What is there secret?
As a former mechanical engineer for Honda, and having years of experience consulting with the Big 3, I can tell you a few reasons why Honda competes.
1) They are far more thorough and persistent in their approach to reliability and crashworthiness than the Big 3, they have slowly but surely put together world class engineering tools and have a long term vision of how they will use them. Big 3 on the other hand has a quarter-by-quarter view, their approach to engineering a vehicle is haphazard and it shows. Ford has done the best in turning this around, to their credit.
2) Honda is far more efficient that the Big 3. They can engineer a car with a team that is a fraction of the size of the bloated enterprise that GM needs to produce a vehicle. The company structure is far less complicated and has fewer unnecessary levels of management.
3) The Honda organization is flatter than the Big 3 in terms of salary. Vice Presidents make a reasonable proportional salary, hundreds of thousands - not the multi million dollar salaries of the Big 3 VPs. Everyone at all levels of the company is expected to be aware of all aspects of the business, everyone is hands on, there are no slackers. Everyone wears the same uniform, from janitor to the President.
4) Honda requires their employees to work HARD. Believe me you will never be sitting around idle if you are an engineer at Honda. Totally unlike the Big 3 from my experience, there is a lot of slush in their operations.
5) Honda is loyal to their employees and expects their employees to be loyal to them. They pride themselves for never having laid off an employee. Even during the earthquake in 2011 which devastated much of their Japan R&D facility, no one went without a job, people either worked from home or were assigned cleanup, damage control or other duties until things went back on line.
6) Most importantly, one of the main principles at Honda is their belief that their purpose as a corporation is not only to make money. One of the principles states that "we will strive to be a company that society wants to exist". You would never hear such a statement coming out of the Big 3. For many years they made a profit out of selling junk to the consumer, because their philosophy was/is that any dollar fluttering in the breeze is a good dollar. Short term view that nailed Detroit in the end.
Last edited by GearHeadDave; 12-30-2016 at 06:55 AM..
1. Toyota 10 mil
2. GM 9.7 mil
3. VW 9.3 mil
4. Nissan / Renault 8.3 mil
5. Hyundai / Kia 7.5 mil
6. Ford 6 mil
7. Fiat Chrysler 4.3 mil
8. Honda 4 mil
As a former mechanical engineer for Honda, and having years of experience consulting with the Big 3, I can tell you a few reasons why Honda competes.
1) They are far more thorough and persistent in their approach to reliability and crashworthiness than the Big 3, they have slowly but surely put together world class engineering tools and have a long term vision of how they will use them. Big 3 on the other hand has a quarter-by-quarter view, their approach to engineering a vehicle is haphazard and it shows. Ford has done the best in turning this around, to their credit.
2) Honda is far more efficient that the Big 3. They can engineer a car with a team that is a fraction of the size of the bloated enterprise that GM needs to produce a vehicle. The company structure is far less complicated and has fewer unnecessary levels of management.
3) The Honda organization is flatter than the Big 3 in terms of salary. Vice Presidents make a reasonable proportional salary, hundreds of thousands - not the multi million dollar salaries of the Big 3 VPs. Everyone at all levels of the company is expected to be aware of all aspects of the business, everyone is hands on, there are no slackers. Everyone wears the same uniform, from janitor to the President.
4) Honda requires their employees to work HARD. Believe me you will never be sitting around idle if you are an engineer at Honda. Totally unlike the Big 3 from my experience, there is a lot of slush in their operations.
5) Honda is loyal to their employees and expects their employees to be loyal to them. They pride themselves for never having laid off an employee. Even during the earthquake in 2011 which devastated much of their Japan R&D facility, no one went without a job, people either worked from home or were assigned cleanup, damage control or other duties until things went back on line.
6) Most importantly, one of the main principles at Honda is their belief that their purpose as a corporation is not only to make money. One of the principles states that "we will strive to be a company that society wants to exist". You would never hear such a statement coming out of the Big 3. For many years they made a profit out of selling junk to the consumer, because their philosophy was/is that any dollar fluttering in the breeze is a good dollar. Short term view that nailed Detroit in the end.
Thats pretty interesting. Thanks.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Best reason.
