Like Flip said, let's get back on topic...........Toyota / GM marketing.

I'm not convinced that higher prices for Toyota ( and other Japanese firms) are the way to go for GM's troubles. You older guys here at CL, I'm sure, can remember with me that this has been tried before....several times. During the Reagan Administration, in the early-mid 1980's, tariffs and quotas on Japanese vehicles made them hard to get and allowed dealer price markups...particularly at Honda, whose Accord and CRX were selling like gold. This was done primarily to " protect " the domestic industry and save jobs (the industry was much less global back then) from an "invasion" of cheap, reliable Japanese products. Reagan himself did not like the idea...he was a classic free-trader.....but caved in from political pressure and pressure from the UAW. (Toyota and Honda did not yet have U.S. plants). The quotas and higher prices worked for a time.....it DID insulate the domestic industry for a time.....but what did Detroit do with this temporary "protection"? Did they start producing better products so they could start catching up? NO...they did NOT. In fact, because the quotas insulated them from Japanese competition, they RAISED prices substantially several times WITHOUT a corresponding increase in quality. In fact, GM and Chrysler made some of their all-time worst vehicles, quality-wise, during this period. The Big Three took advantage of this insulation from competition to increase short-term profits and little else. In fact, this was the period when I myself finally had enough of American junk and defected to Japanese cars....even with dealer mark-ups.....starting with a Mazda GLC...a car which had some design flaws but was MUCH better then the typical domestic product of the time. With one exception...a Saturn SL-2......I have not returned to the domestic product since.
Again in the mid-1990's the extreme dollar-yen ratio produced very high prices for Japanese-nameplate cars in relation to the domestic competition. Again, Detroit was offered an opportunity to improve its products by the higher prices for the Japanese competition, and this time they responded a little better but still not very impressively, IMO.
So....now what makes people think that a new round of price increases for Japanese-nameplate cars will change GM any more than in the past? The only difference between now and then is that now it will hurt American as well as Japanese workers because unlike 20 years ago, Americans now assemble Japanese-nameplate cars here in American plants.

 

Instead of raising prices, why doesn't Toyota give GM some help in the quality and design areas? Give them pointers on cost cutting, factory improvement and give them some market research on designs and features the public is looking for. Teach them how to get vendors to lower prices and raise the quality of the products they produce. That would make more sense to me.

 

For the record I dont work at ****ing wal-mart....

Anywho, GM has increased quality of their cars. The new Cobalt is in my oppinion a superior offering to the current Civic for example( how long will this last is yet to be determined since the new model is coming up), and leaps and bounds better then the outdated j bodied cavalier it replaced. Reading some responses by some members here it seems that maybe some guys here are judging GM by the shady quality products they used to have decade or 2 ago.

Rather then GM being plagued by quality problems in its current line up, its more like its being hurt by its image it got for years upon years of unleashing substandard products into the market place.

I also think that by default domestic manufacturers have some serious competitive disadvantages to foreign ones to some extent. For example many countries have a national healtcare system, a huge cost That GM would not be burdened by, if USA also had a national healthcare coverage. Part of the reason why you see domestic manufacturing plants move both north and south since both of those nations have nation wide healthcare.

One thing where Im positive GM is blowing it however is reverting to having FWD V8 powered SS midsize sedans, that give a marginally better performance then its next strongest V6 competitors. Especially since they already have a brand new Zeta platform already developed for their austrialian and middle eastern line up. Although I guess having a 303 hp 4 door midsize sedan for 27,000 grand isnt a bad deal, even if it is fwd.

I wonder how a Impala SS would match against a lighter but less powerful Nissan Altima SE-R?

Although I think the TrailBlazer SS is looking out to be a down right awesome hit! out performing X5 4.8is not being far behind a Cayenne Turbo for half and nearly 1/3rd of the price? If I were to get a new SUV this might be it! 391 hp for 35k and nurburgring sport tuned suspension included!

 

The Pontiac G6 is a great example of poor marketing and lackluster appeal but only to fleet and rental car agencies.

 

You don't think Toyota is burdened by US healthcare? Toyota employs 37,000 employees in North America alone from TMS in Torrance, all the way to the many plants across the US, but for the most part, most of Toyota's North American operations are here in the United States alone. There is TMMC in Canada and TMMBC in Mexico.

 

Its still not a subpar product and definitively not a bad buy especially when considering that you get a V6 mind you not a high performance V6 but still a mean of 40 hp extra, for the same price that would land you the base model 4 cylinder options from Honda, Mazda, Nissan or Toyota. And definitively a huge step up from the relic that is the Grand Am, honestly I think the G6 got unfair bashing. If I were looking for a 20k or less family sedan and I can get get a V6, vs an I4, id probably opt for the V6.

 

READ the article on "what went wrong at GM" in the July Issue of "Smart Money" pg 78-82

Wow, JPA is right, the UAW has a lot to do with the companies demise. Funny I got my mag today with this article. Here are some scary facts.
1. GM market share is 25.4%, its lowest since Henry Ford was selling the Model T.
2. GM stock price is NO HIGHER than it was in 1962.
3. Between pension fund and heath care, $165 BILLION is promised to workers. Only 17 billion is left for stock holders.
4. Only 13% of GMs workers are under 40 years old
5. GM has 150k employees but has to procinde heath care for 1. 1 million people.
6. The health care is LAVISH. UAW members pay 7% compares to the avg 32% out of pocket for medical.
7. GM spends $1,525 on health care (Ford $1,100, Toyota $400)
8. GM has improved, only 2.9 workers needed to assemble cars, that number was 4.6 in 1992.
9. This **** began with a stike in 1936. Walter REuther is the dude that started the UAW and fighting with GM/Ford/Chrysler.
10. This guy and his successors got SWEET *** deals for workers every 3 years, the contract got better and better.
11. He negotiated one company after the other, so when the first agreed, the others would too.
12. From 1947-1977, GM was king ding a ling. Every YEAR sales in the U.S and Canada rose 4.5 percent from 4 million to 15 million.
13. For 20 STRAIGHT years, GM was first in sales among American corporations and 16 of those years, 1st in PROFITS!
14. GM auto share was around 45%, peaking with 50.7% of the market in 1962.
15. GM cannot be profitable with a 20% market share.
16. When GM IDLES a damn plant, workers get 95% of their pay. Their wages are 60% higher than the avg American worker.

 

Have you sat or driven a G6? Material quality interior/exterior are exactly like it's bigger brother, the Grand Prix....cheap. I'd still rather opt for the 4cyl Accord, Altima, 6 or Camry despite the fact it's 40 hp less than the G6's slow 8 second 0-60 V6. The quality and value you know with the Japanese competition will outlast and overcome the power and added options you can get w/the G6. I wouldn't doubt in 5 years or 10 years of ownership, the Japanese offerings will still hold it's value and still run strong compared to the G6.

 

Not to the extent General Motors is that employs well over 121,000 employees in the united states alone. Not to mention retired employees that are still covered.

 

Not working at Wal-mart is probably the reason you can afford a nice car.

As for GM's quality (and Chrysler's) , it is both. The poor quality of most domestic 1980's vintage vehicles was not just an an image...it was a fact. In some 36 years of experience with vehicles, the 1980 Chevolet Citation was the worst new car ever owned, defect-wise, and the 1984 Pontiac Fiero and 1987 Hyundai Excel were the worst new cars I ever test-drove.....and believe me, I was not alone. 1980's vintage Chrysler products were almost as poor...but their problems were mostly in less-critical areas of rattles and loose assembly. Yes, today's domestically-designed GM products are somewhat better, but they still trail the better Japanese-nameplate cars by a large margin...with the exception of a few Nissan and Mitsubishi products. While GM, as you say, has shown some improvement in fit-and-finish, especially in the very newest models like the Buick LaCrosse and Pontiac G6, (although Flip doesn't think much of the G6 in general and I don't either) in other areas it has lagged far behind...as in the ongoing and persistent brake problems in the larger trucks and SUV's....and the rest of the world has not stood still, as witnessed by Toyota's impressive success and Hyundai's even more impressive rise in recent years.

It still brings us back to the question of Toyota deliberately raising prices to keep GM from going down the tubes. I explained in detail in my last post why I think that is a bad idea..and how GM has not learned from past " protection " . GM's history shows that this has not worked in the past...I highly doubt that it will work today.

 

Yes I have In fact I was a driving supervisor for a trucking national weekend and had plenty of seat time in the G6 as well as other cars. I found the cars handling dynamic surprisingly nimble for a fwder, and rather forgiving especially to the demands that some patrons were putting on the demo car. I found the car to be adequate and its fit and finish to be tolerable. Id trade a slight trade off fit and finish for slightly sportier driver dynamic and accelaration. And its fit and finish was comparable to some japanese offerings.

 

Well that's something GM has to figure out quickly w/their structure. Obviously GM isn't the company to follow a business model after and that's the reason why it's imported competition is pulling strong to their demise.

 

Well if you compare it to Nissan, it's pretty evident in that deparment.

 

My "nice car" is a 1995 Lexus SC300 while the other is a 240sx , if you do the maintenance yourself, and know where to shop for parts the car becomes somewhat affordable, and cheaper to find then say a 2002 neon even if someone were to work at walmart (ok I take it back I dont know how walmart employees survive!). I know employees in my local Wal-mart that drives an S2000.... shes married but still. Another worker had a modified 2002 Audi A Although walmart is a decent company (if youre manager or above) for me at the time of moving to a new city it was more like a temp agency type job till i found a much better one,thats all in the past however. Although I wonder if some employees had special treatment with their pay rates?.

Anyways (bah why do I keep going off topic?) yes I do agree that protection is pretty much the welfare of the car industry and very very bad news for people like us, the consumer. No argument from me there, but I can't help but notice that its skeletons in the closet of the past thats catching up to GM rather then its current trend. Perhaps they decided to improve its line up when it was just simply way to late?

 

Flip and Inabj2 are both correct here to an extent. The G6 does have noticeably better fit-and-finish than the Grand Prix and the former Grand Am, but the materials used for assembly....especially in the interior.....IMO are still rather flimsy and cheap feeling. They just don't LOOK quite as cheap as before because GM is finally starting to figure out again ( as it did in the 1960's ) how to assemble and detail their interiors using cheap materials.