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12-15-2008, 12:14 PM | #26 | |
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12-15-2008, 12:33 PM | #27 |
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Deep, deep discounts, fleet sales, decent international sales, and calling shipped vehicles "sales" is part of what is keeping the big 3 in those numbers. It's a lot of obfuscation, but the reality is that less and less Americans are buying their cars every year. And this trend is not reversing
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12-15-2008, 12:43 PM | #28 | |
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I'll elaborate: There are consumers who will always buy domestic, regardless of quality/value/whatever. This is what sustained The Big Three through the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Call them "The Core". The Core has been shrinking, so now even if a company (GM) is producing good-value, quality, price competitive products, they are still burdened with production overcapacity. What happens when you make 10 cars, and the public only wants six ? You have all these sunk costs, you have to get at least some of them back. OK, some can go off to fleet sales, you can have fire sales on the rest, just to get them off the lots. Problem solved. But now you've created two new problems. People perceive your brand as "the rental car brand" and people who rent are usually getting the low-end stripper model, so two negative perceptions there. Problem #2 - those price reductions ? Sure they moved inventory off the lot, but at zero profit, PLUS you just screwed over early adopters and "The Core" in terms of depreciation. Do that every year in a row for ten years, and you won't have many Early Adopters left willing to take their financial beating. Everyone will just wait for the Fire Sale. OK, so now the armchair CEOs chime in: Roll back the production lines. Well, the UAW has certain levels of production work contractually guaranteed to them. If GM can't provide the work, the workers go idle and still get paid (yay Jobs Bank). Is it retarded ? Sure. It's also one of the things they've just given up on after years. Like the unions themselve, the idea of a jobs bank started out as a good one, where it keeps skilled (*ahem*) workers "in the family" when production numbers are cut, lest they leave the Company for good. Better to idle a skilled experienced worker for a month or two rather than give the boot and have to hire/train his replacement. Obviously, there have been abuses of this system. So what to do with overproduction ? This has two faces. GM has the capacity to build (fake numbers) say, 300,000 Cobalts. Well, the market seems to only want about 180,000 of them. Dump some of them in fleet, but that goes back to the earlier problem. Here's where it gets murky: Some (not all) dealers want to be "full-line" even though it conflicts with their own brand image (nobody ever said dealers were smart). Take a hypothetical Pontiac dealer. During crisis times, nobody is buying G8s or even G6s, meanwhile at the Chevy dealer down the road, Cobalts are flying off the lot. Pontiac dealer wants a piece of that, so you get the G5, a rebadged Cobalt. (Even better example of this is the recent rebadging of a Daewoo econobox as the "G3"). That would be the pull side, dealers want to be a "full line". The flip side is, all of those Cobalts have to go somewhere. Even if a dealer doesnt want them, hey "you're a Pontiac dealer, you want some <good selling model> ? You'll have to take some G5s too". Lather, rinse, repeat for 20+ years, and this is the mess they are in. Even if UAW agreed to work for $0/hour, it would only effect prices about -10%. Last edited by Wagon Of Fury; 12-15-2008 at 12:50 PM. |
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12-15-2008, 12:49 PM | #29 | |
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12-15-2008, 12:49 PM | #30 |
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Jumpy will always have a place in his heart for the vette.
This is mah song for you, sweet sweet vette. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGC003Xz3CY |
12-15-2008, 12:53 PM | #31 |
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12-15-2008, 12:53 PM | #32 |
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LS1s will go on sale for half price, and every mod will swap them into their Miata's!
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12-15-2008, 12:59 PM | #33 | |
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If GM could cut their product lines, brands and dealerships by 70% they'd be golden. But it's such a crap shoot right now. The door handle just ripped off my truck door, it's got rust spots, has 170k on. I'd buy another GM truck, but only if it's 12k or less. I figure in 6 months, they'll be there. |
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12-15-2008, 01:00 PM | #34 |
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12-15-2008, 01:08 PM | #35 |
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12-15-2008, 01:23 PM | #36 |
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12-15-2008, 01:27 PM | #37 |
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I know it's been said, but bankrupt <> closing.
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12-15-2008, 01:31 PM | #38 | |
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YOU! Out. Now. *Points to door* |
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12-15-2008, 01:36 PM | #39 |
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12-15-2008, 01:37 PM | #40 |
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It gets 80% of the fee, because it's their pimp ride.
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12-16-2008, 07:49 AM | #41 | |
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Im not sure, but I know what I see on CNN, and I see whats happening at the dealership level. A good friend of mine is the finance manager at a Cadillac/Pontiac dealership. Nationwide, GMAC is doing audits and basically looking for reasons to close the stores. Its very scary for these small dealerships that are family owned and run. This one in particular has been around since the 50's and they dont have a good feeling about things right now.
Maybe. I know theres more to it than what I know. I know that my former company had to lay off a couple hundred people (including me) due to GM and Chrysler not paying for an order of over 6000 new forklifts we had already built for them, among other things, but this was the nail in the coffin. We at least got a deposit from Chrysler, but the order for GM was filled on good faith due to them buying/leasing units from us since forever. We paid tons of money in overtime, did tons of custom work and engineering, made custom overhead guards to fit into particular doorways at particular plants, and when we were ready to ship, GM said no. This was almost a year ago, so GM has been in trouble for a while it seems. Meh. The LSx motor is a gem of a motor, but I still really like a DOHC V8. Toyota's V8 engine with more factory support could be a world beater. The little 4.7 in my Tundra can rev its ass off, sounds nice, and has a good bit of power without any drama. Quote:
Keep in mind, teh last pushrod engine I had was a 327 in my 68 Corvette. So take what I said with a bit of salt. The LSx series are freakin awesome, I love the motor in my Dad's C6. But I do have bad memories of a buddies Pontiac 400 engine he just rebuilt. He and I had just put the thing in, got it running and did an easy break in over the period of a week. All new parts, block hot tanked, roller rockers, etc. On the first drive where he got on it, he missed a shift, redlined it, and bent a bunch of pushrods. I come from a Corvette family. My Dad has had one since before I was born, the longest we went without one was just after I was born until 1974 because there wasnt anywhere for me to ride, so he had a 68 SS 396 for that time. We have stuck it out thru times when the the Corvette was a total piece of junk. My Mom had a "Crossfire" 1981 model that was an abortion of a car, and we skipped the C4 completley because my Dad hated the digital gauges and the clamshell hood. The new Corvettes are really a fabulous machine. Well built, great engineering, and a really nice car to drive and enjoy. I dont want to see them go away. |
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12-16-2008, 08:00 AM | #42 | |
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They're trimming down the redundant positions. I'd say that's an excellent example of 'knowing what you're doing' |
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12-16-2008, 08:02 AM | #43 | |
Don't Thread on Me
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I've personally seen it locally as well. |
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