Clearly, Toyota employees make too much money and need to take a wage cut:
Toyota Motor, the Japanese auto giant, announced Monday that it expected the first loss in 70 years in its core vehicle-making business, underscoring how the economic crisis is spreading across the global auto industry.
Analysts said Toyota’s downward revision, its second in two months, showed that the worst financial crisis since the Depression is threatening not just the Big Three but even relatively healthy automakers in Japan, South Korea and Europe. Many other companies will also soon be reporting losses.
Worse, analysts said that they expect next year to be even more painful, amid forecasts that the global economy will continue to slide until at least the summer. This could cause a significant shakeout, driving cash-strapped smaller and weaker companies into the arms of a smaller number of bigger, richer players.
“It is just a matter of time before all major automakers are losing money,” an auto analyst in Tokyo for Credit Suisse Securities, Koji Endo, said. “And things will just get worse next year, when companies start losing money for the second consecutive year.”
Personally, I blame the UAW.
cleek
"worst financial crisis since the Depression"
this phrase needs to die.
Napoleon
What is amazing about the Toyota story is that, as I read elsewhere, they started publically reporting results in 1941, which of course was the year Pearl Harbor was attacked, and yet they managed to report profits right through losing the war had having their home market occupied by a foreign army, up to the present day.
Montysano
@cleek:
Only because this might actually be Greater.
Church Lady
John, I really don’t think Corker was necessarily trying to bust the UAW. His proposal had everyone taking a hit, not just labor. The difference between GM and Toyota is that before the economy and credit availability started its deep slide, and no one was buying cars, Toyota was making a profit. GM was still losing billions, even in the so-called good times.
Napoleon
Really? What was the hit he proposed to the people in the financial industry in their bail out? Why was it in the auto industry bailout they singled out the UAW to directly attempt to negotiate with them, unlike any other segment of the work force?
Xenos
@cleek: Is that phrase untrue? Or are you suggesting this will be worse than the Depression?
This crisis does need its own name, though. Aigapocolypse?
Reverend Dennis
Yeah, that was just collateral damage.
What part of "GM is paying benefits to hundreds of thousands of retirees while Toyota is not" do you fail to understand?
eyepaddle
@Xenos: Howzabout "econotastrophe" or possibly catastrophonomics?"
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
It’s bad everywhere. Fuck.
The Moar You Know
I’m glad to see our favorite management-defending, union-smashing corporate shill has returned to grace us with her presence.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Only the part about how UAW retirees deserve the cushy, well-paid retirements they have.
Xenos
And because of tax benefits from the southern states that host the Toyota plants, Toyota comes into the competition pre-bailed out. Back those benefits out of the calculation, and see who is more profitable.
Also, if the credit squeeze gets bad enough that Toyota can’t sell enough cars in the short term to stay in business, do you think for a moment the Japanese government would not bail them out, too? You can’t get the free market fundamentalists to even consider that question, much less answer it.
Church Lady
@Napoleon:
I wasn’t comparing the auto bailout to the financial bailout. And yes, others would have taken a hit in the Corker proposal. First coming to mind the debtholders. I would call having to write off 70% of my investment, which Corker proposed in order to reduce GM’s staggering debt, a hit.
@Reverernd Dennis:
Are you arguing that, given its legacy costs, that GM can never become profitable? If so, then we agree.
blissful
I think the bailout money would be better served by giving everyone a $10,000 credit to buy an American car.
Reverend Dennis
It’s clear to me that these retirees should be allowed to starve to death in the cold. Those other excess workers who are not taken by disease should also be allowed to starve to death. That and some robust tax cuts will straighten this economy out tout de’ suite. These people are free, free to starve just as any wealthy person is free to starve.
P.S.: How long before the Republicans start bellowing "Class warfare!" when someone contrasts the treatment of the financiers with that of the auto workers?
kay
@Church Lady:
Why was Toyota paying 21 dollars an hour? The average wage for unskilled labor here in the rural rust belt is 9-12.
Because they didn’t want the union coming in. No threat of that now. The UAW is busted. Corker was protecting Toyota’s interests, all right. What he wasn’t protecting were the pay rates of his constituents.
Xenos
@kay: Corker is a Republican. Working-class voters are not his constituents, just his dupes.
John O
Yes, the blogosphere is full of jerks.
So is, you know, the actual planet. And many of those jerks without blogs have been running the country into the ground for several years.
Some have even been stealing tax payer money to fund their own rich and fabulous lifestyles.
At least us jerks on blogs are, literally, harmless.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Yeah, those pensions were garnered through collective bargaining— an immoral, un-American practice that takes directly from the corporate bottom line and gives it to the lazy, the shiftless, and the worthless.
Working class scum, well and truly deserving of a cold, hungry fate.
Church Lady
@Kay:
I’d like to think that automotive labor is not "unskilled", if for no other reason than my personal safety. Skilled labor vs. unskilled labor might explain the difference in wages.
DrDave
@Church Lady:
The difference is that Toyota builds cars that more people want to buy. Because they are designed better, constructed better, and are more dependable over a longer period of time.
John O
Ivan,
What part of "every other industrialized country in the world doesn’t HAVE to pay retiree benefits, because their countries take care of that stuff for them," do you not understand?
And yeah, state subsidies don’t count as tax payer money, either.
Sheesh.
cleek
i’m suggesting the phrase is overused to the point of cliche.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Zifnab
@Reverend Dennis:
Probably the part where GM dumped their EV-1 on the scrap heap in favor of multi-ton SUVs while Toyota blazed ahead with the Prius.
Even if the American companies and the Japanese companies paid their employees exactly the same wages, the American companies would still lag behind because they had a bad business model.
This, more than anything, is why the public opposes an auto industry bailout. If we were talking about bailing out Apple Computers or Dunkin Donuts, folks would be more inclined to lend a hand because people actively enjoy their products. By contrast, American car companies have been chronic in their tone-deafness to the consumer.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Like I don’t agree with you, even? Perhaps the tongue in my cheek wasn’t sufficiently obvious.
Up until two weeks ago, I was in the "automotive business"; and I’ve spent time in most of the assembly plants in North America. I watched Ford move production to Canada because the cost of healthcare was so much less there than here, just as a quick "for-example."
kay
@Church Lady:
It’s simply not true in my experience. Manufacturing mobile homes is arguably more skilled than working on an assembly line. Here they make 12 dollars an hour.
Corker’s constituents will be joining them.
DougJ
Off topic, this may be the funniest thing I’ve read all year: Craig Thomas of WorldNetDaily (via Sully):
Duke of Earl
@John O:
I count 28 years, a few more than "several".
This financial meltdown was initiated by Reagan and aided and abetted by every POTUS and Congress since.
ThymeZoneThe Plumber
As predicted. All automakers’ sales are down in the credit crisis, and by about the same amounts. This situation has never been about sales, and all the useless blather you’ve seen in here about our products versus their products has been just that … useless. We’ve seen the stats and the facts to prove it.
What the Big 3 crisis is about is debt and legacy costs. It’s not about the UAW. It’s not about quality deficiencies (in general, although there are exceptions here and there in the product lines. For example, the traditional Jeep is a vehicle that was designed 60-70 years ago and hasn’t changed that much since, and compared to modern cars, it’s a piece of junk. Of course, if your goal is to 4-wheel over the Sierra Madre, its would still be a great choice).
Now you will start to see the Japanese Big Three (Toyota, Honda and Nissan) suffering because they are not moving cars off the dealer lots any faster than the American Big Three are doing right now. The fact that they are government subsidized businesses allows them to weather this storm better than our Big 3, but not indefinitely. Dealer failures and production cuts are right around the corner for these companies too. The pain you will feel in 2009 is going to be pretty shocking.
As for general UAW bashing, you might want to read this. The labor movement is largely responsible for the existence of the middle class in this country, and it’s time for Dems to step up to their rightful role as the political representatives of the labor movement. It is not a smart idea to neglect labor at this point in time.
DrDave
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
If Chrysler, Ford and GM could build cars that were as reliable, well finished and attractive as those built by Toyota and Honda, they wouldn’t be in financial trouble. So the truth is, if Chrysler, Ford and GM WANT to survive, they are going to need to build cars that look and work like they were designed by the Japanese. We know that American workers can build them, because they have been building cars for the Japanese manufacturers for over 20 years; the issue is design.
I’ve rented Chevy’s and Chrysler’s on my last couple of trips. I am always happy to get in my Honda when I get home.
The Moar You Know
@DougJ: Craig Thomas uses a lot of words to call a man a nigger.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
As probably the only person in this thread ever to walk around inside an automotive assembly plant, I can tell you– that ain’t it.
Amongst the Big Three there is a "skilled trades" labor: electricians, pipefitters, millwrights, etc. They are NOT the biggest pool of labor in the plant; they generally perform the maintenance on the equipment used to build the vehicles.
The operators who actually do the work? Generally learn their skills OTJ; and although each of those jobs does require some training, they’re just not in the same class as that union electrician.
You too could learn to knock balance weights on tire/wheel assemblies (and there were a lot of women doing exactly that job in a lot of the plants I’ve visited) and in a pretty short while. You wouldn’t be horribly fast at it the first day
but after a month or so you’d be doing it with the best of ’em.
And yes, the jobs are pretty much the same whether its in the Ford Wayne (Michigan) Assembly Plant or Nissan Smyrna (Tennessee) or GM Oshawa Truck (Ontario) or Toyota Georgetown (Kentucky).
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Might I remind you that the plural of "anecdote" is not data?
Duke of Earl
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
That may be, but in many ways perception is reality.
An auto is the second most expensive single purchase most people will ever make after a home, screw them with a piece of crap and they will never come back and buy another from the screw-er.
Starting some time in the early to mid seventies many American cars became considerably more shoddy than the competition, that continued, as you admit, up until quite recently. You don’t turn around thirty plus years of accurate perceptions in five years.
And Chrysler products are still largely inferior to the competition.
We have been buying cars with at least 100k miles and driving them until the wheels fall off for more than twenty years, I’m an old hot rodder and know how to do my own maintenance and repairs, I wouldn’t even consider an American car for this method of saving money. We buy high quality Japanese luxury cars for pennies on the dollar and usually get at least 100k miles ourselves with no major problems.
Reverend Dennis
Many Americans wanted big gas-guzzlers right up to the second that they didn’t want them. How else to explain that for years the best-selling vehicle in the country was the Ford F-150 pickup? The forces that drove Japanese auto makers to build small, fuel-efficient cars from the beginning simply weren’t present in the US until recently.
The Moar You Know
I was a diehard Nissan driver until this year, when I wound up with a Lincoln Aviator. It is the first vehicle in a long time that I have been enthusiastic about driving. Really a great car. Very unlike what I’ve been driving previously (pickups). I am very impressed with the vehicle and how it is put together. I still pull the Nissan out of the driveway every couple of weeks to keep the battery in shape, but that’s about it.
America makes damn good cars – at least Ford does – so let’s not pretend that the problems in Detroit are because they make shit vehicles. That hasn’t been the case for a long time. It has been the retiree burden and the failure by the management of Ford, GM & Chrysler to adequately fund the retirement costs that they voluntarily incurred.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
TZ, I generally agree with you, but I gotta throw a bit of nuance into this statement.
I have a Jeep. A ten year old Cherokee. Rides like a truck. Noisy. Shitty fuel economy.
And absolutely, dead-nuts reliable.
It’s an "old school" design; heavy metal in industrial strengths. Weighs a bunch, since the design solutions are generally "put a bigger bracket on the fucker" type responses. And thus, it’s tough enough to go bouncing over the Sierra Madre.
You could certainly get a nicer, newer designed vehicle; one that gets better fuel economy and one that is quiet, and rides like a Silver Ghost. It won’t, however, take the lickin’ my old Jeep can take and keep on tickin’.
(Unless, perhaps, its a Mercedes Geländewagen… but if you can drop 80K or more into a vehicle you’re not thinking about a Jeep anyway.)
DBrown
@Xenos: Lets call it by its true cause and say "The Bush-whack"
Brick Oven Bill
People live on $1/day in Africa, $2/day in the Middle East, and $3/day in Central America. As we become one big, happy world, a $5/hr low-skill job will rapidly become a thing of the past. This isn’t that big of a deal because you can still buy rice for, maybe $0.50/lb. That is a lot of food for the money.
Most Wall Street money goes to the Democratic Party, the one that keeps hedge fund manager tax rates at 15%. Personally, I’m for tariffs and a fence. The Democratic Party is for NAFTA and open borders. Imagine that.
ThymeZoneThe Plumber
I
Actually, that is just bass-ackwards wrong. As already covered on these pages, the American Big Three sell as many vehicles in the US as the Japanese Big Three, and are now leading the JD Power Initial Quality ratings in brands, over the Japanese. The links have already been posted but you can find them yourself in about three minutes.
The Big Three are in financial trouble because they have to write huge checks to cover legacy costs even when they don’t sell cars, checks that their Japanese competitors don’t have to write, partly because those companies don’t operate under a government that leaves people to fend for themselves for healthcare, and partly because the American companies were part of the 70-year relationship with labor that built the American middle class and are still paying the bills for that participation. While our grandfathers were fighting for your work week and your middle class blessings, the Japanese were bombing Pearl Harbor and slaughtering the Chinese. Just a minor detail there in your history book you might want to take a look at. And then after we beat them in the war, we had to go in and rebuild their industrial base and prop them up while they got back on their feet. With money we made over here by continuing to construct the middle class whose descendants are today’s car buyers. Surprise, the middle class bubble you live in was not a gift from the Republicans and from trickle down economics. It is a gift you got from the people who fought for workers in Flint, Michigan while the Japanese were building Zeroes to bomb your grandparents.
The straight-up comparison between American and Japanese carmakers that is now the song of Sarah Palin America and some idiot Dems is pretty tiresome, and just idiotic. It’s an apples and oranges comparison from the ground up.
Chris Johnson
I have a ten year old Buick Century- actually fifteen year old- and it’s been terrific. It’s one of those cars where you get one and suddenly you see all the other ones on the road still running. It’s got some key faults that have needed attention- the nastiest was strut towers rusting out- but I still really like it :)
Mind you we keep saying ‘ten year old’, ‘fifteen year old’. Maybe the two year old GM cars are shit?
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Fixt.
Duke of Earl
@Brick Oven Bill:
Point taken..
However the Democratic wing of the Democratic party is not so enamored of NAFTA, the WTO and the like. It’s largely the pragmatic centrists that have fucked over the average citizen.
I’ve really been trying to think of something about which "teh far left" has been as catastrophically wrong about as the pragmatic centrists have been about any number of things such as invading Iraq and financial deregulation and I honestly can’t come up with anything.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Americans have cheap gas and fat asses. OF COURSE we buy big-ass vehicles!
ThymeZoneThe Plumber
Yes, I drove a CJ 5 for years. Strong like bull. I had it in the shop for anything other than routine maintenance exactly once in all the years I drove it. Beat the hell out of it up here in the Bradshaw Mountains exploring for old silver mines and going over tree stumps all day.
But the truth is, these things are really horrible vehicles by comparison to modern unit body fuel injected cars. But as you and I know, we wouldn’t take our Accord up there on those roads, we’d destroy the car and have to have it trucked out.
The reason for the reliability you mention is mostly simplicity. There just isn’t much to them. If you tried to make that Jeep at the level of complexity involved in a Camry the thing would cost $100k and be in the shop constantly.
Church Lady
@The Moar You Know:
Are the seats comfortable? My husband drove Navigators for six years running, and I hated to ride in his car for a long trip because the seats were so damned hard. He switched to a Yukon two years ago, and my fanny is much happier.
Duke of Earl
@ThymeZoneThe Plumber:
Initial quality perceptions are highly subjective, what really counts is long term quality and JD Power doesn’t address that.
One of the reasons Mercedes for instance doesn’t get the very highest initial quality ratings is that those who buy Mercedes are very often exquisitely picky about extremely minor details, I suspect that is true of people buying Lexi and other top end Japanese cars too.
I haven’t looked at Consumer Reports in a while but I suspect that Domestics still don’t rate as highly as the Japanese on reliability on the whole.
Of course there are exceptions and most modern cars are quite well made, I’m talking averages here.
Ack, Sysadmin of Evil
If you think American cars have caught up to Japanese cars for reliability, I suggest you peruse the problem reports for each model in the yearly auto issue of Consumer Reports.
While Ford and GM have come a long ways, they still a ways to go. And Chrysler is still abysmal (as is Mercedes, apparently).
DBrown
Xenos, in answer to your request for a name for this depression, I nominate: The BushWhack
Duke of Earl
@The Moar You Know:
Not exactly a fair comparison between a luxury SUV and a pickup..
Comparing it with an Infiniti QX45 or equivalent Lexus (something 470) and I suspect you would not have the same disparity.
jake 4 that 1
Wait, you mean more people are holding off on the purchase of a new car? Shocking.
Seriously, here’s a prediction: Every manufacturer that relies on people buying the new improved model is in for a severe hosing. Tragically for the shrieking set, in some instances there will be no one to blame. Oh well, there’s always Obama.
DrDave
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
Fair enough. But cruise through the parking lot of any high school or college near you. Which do you see more Hondas, Toyotas and Hyundais or more Buicks? There’s some data for you. When college students would rather have a GM product than a Prius, GM will be on the road to recovery. But if the Detroit automakers can’t figure out a way to increase their appeal, especially among younger buyers (who will be middle age buyers in a few short years), they will not be saved.
JR
Brick Oven Bill says: "Most Wall Street money goes to the Democratic Party…"
Link please.
ThymeZoneThe Plumber
Unfortuantely, that is not where the accurate data is. The accurate data is in the computer systems of the manufacturers, in the databases that support their warranty and service operations. And those databases are not made public. I doubt that the gold in Fort Knox is protected better than the information in those data stores. I worked for Giant Japanese Company and did the care and feeding of that data. Let me put it this way: We called it the Data Motel. Data checked in, but it never checked out.
Consumer Reports is running what amounts to a self-selected poll of car owners. I don’t put a lot of stock in their ratings.
Neither those respondents nor the magazine has any idea what the actual service performance is for the vehicles they rate. Only the manufacturers really know, and they aren’t telling. I advise take self-selected poll responses with a grain of salt.
100% of the information out there is subjective. The objective data is not published, as I just stated.
But for just one way to discredit your latter assertion, what in the world is anyone doing comparing the quality of vehicles like this? Consumer Misreports:
Comparing the Prius with a Jeep? Why not compare Jack Daniels with Listerine? Give us a break. My Jeep took more punishment in a month than a Prius will take in its entire service life. The Prius is sold to people who will pay extra … a lot extra … for a car that "makes a statement" about conservation even if it never saves them an actual dime in total cost of ownership. Those people are going to praise their choice until they turn blue. They may "like" their cars a lot, but that doesn’t make the car a better product. What is the true service cost of a Prius over the first five years versus the service cost of a Corolla? You won’t find the answer to that in Consumer Reports. They don’t know. Toyota knows. Write them and ask them to give you the data out of their database. Good luck!
bago
DougJ: Shit bones! Next you’ll be saying that brotha be all seein into his soul an shit!
Duke of Earl
@ThymeZoneThe Plumber:
And a Z06 Corvette doesn’t take abuse?
Most people with Jeeps never take them offroad, the CJ models perhaps but certainly not the Cherokee or Commander, they are far closer to an Infiniti QX45 in the type of use they will get than they are to a CJwhatever.
I have a mechanic buddy in a high class section of town that tells me he’d go broke without Jeep Cherokees to keep him busy. Yes, I know it’s anecdotal but this guy sees a lot of high end cars.
Duke of Earl
@ThymeZoneThe Plumber:
But that is true of all, or at least most, new cars. People are reluctant to admit they were screwed over in such a large purchase.
And let’s not forget that most people buy their cars based on emotion rather than sheer practicality. My daughter’s family already has an Expedition (which is actually not a bad car although pressure washing the engine led to replacing all eight coil packs @ $500 or so) and now she wants a Tahoe since she had a fairly minor fender bender the other day in her Acura 3.2 when some dumb bitch on a cellphone changed lanes into her and doesn’t "feel safe" in the Acura any more.
They have three kids, hence the Expedition but another giant SUV for their family is just stupid, IMO.. But I know better than to say anything, the woman has a whim of iron.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Once again, having first-hand knowledge of the industry (at least, at the assembly plant level), I can tell you TZ is right about the data. A certain Japanese manufacturer (I shall name no names) here in North America is working to close the loop between wheel-balance/uniformity results and warranty requests received from the dealers.
Ford, on the other hand, have long since closed that loop and use that data constantly to refine their processes and their procedures.
Ever heard of "Six-Sigma"?
I’ve sat in the cubicle of many a Ford Six-Sigma Blackbelt.
And I can tell you that they know exactly which vehicle got exactly which wheel that was balanced at exactly what time using exactly what weights that were applied by exactly what operator during exactly what shift in exactly what plant.
I’m telling you, they worked me like a rented mule to ensure that this data was available from our equipment, and that it could feed into their ongoing process improvements.
bago
Because fucking over brown and black people is the only way to keep the properly born man riding high. Good to know your true feelings.
Throwin Stones
My ’98 (non-Grand) Cherokee Sport takes quite a lickin.
The 4.0 straight six is a good motor. However, the air and heat work for shit, so I don’t haul the family around in it.
But I’ve always loved it and can go where I want in the mud and snow.
All about what your uses are for any vehicle.
The Moar You Know
@Duke of Earl: My parents have the equivalent Lexus (which I had a chance to get) and I didn’t like it nearly so much. It is a great vehicle and very reliable, but it just didn’t "do it for me".
@Church Lady: The seats in the Aviator are wonderful; not hard at all. Of course, I’m used to pickup trucks, so my perception is a little bit skewed.
@Brick Oven Bill: You fail. NAFTA was a product of a Republican administration, and the Republicans have been far more in favor of open borders than any Democrat I’ve ever dealt with or voted for. Living as I do about thirty miles from Tijuana, I would like to see the borders closed, with a moat and armed guards – but since it is not a priority for either party, I guess I won’t be seeing it any time soon.
Duke of Earl
@The Moar You Know:
What is it that makes you prefer the Aviator?
I’m a "car guy" so I’m interested in these things.
Xenos
@Duke of Earl:
Okay. How long have you been carrying that quip around, waiting to drop it on someone?
(Consider it stolen.)
John Cole
I would like to point out that I had a 1983 Chevy Celebrity until 2005, and I loved the car. It always started, required very little maintenance, and the engine never quit. Plus, it was never that bad on gas. I think I was getting 22-24 mpg (I don’t remember, I will have to get out the notebook I kept in the car that I used to log my miles and gas) at the end. Change the oil every 3,000 miles and not be a moron. That was all the car needed.
Perry Como
Now that hedge funds have gained access to $200 billion in Fed loans, I wonder which distinguished southern gentleman will try to negotiate the wages down?
NonWonderDog
@Duke of Earl:
I always have a thing I say about Lexus, it’s like the Japanese Mercedes. I can’t stand Mercs, though; the people that drive them are just saah-aah-aad.
El Cid
Although I generally prefer Japanese cars given reliability reputations, I’ve also had a used Honda which was more of a repair nightmare than all of the American cars I’ve owned put together.
On the other hand, my opinions and / or quality surveys about car quality are not a substitute for rational industrial and trade policies.
Nor should we happily resign all currently foreseeable industries to other nations and the third world and hope that the market fairy will grant us some new, as yet un-anticipated economic sectors to make us all happy again.
pseudonymous in nc
Yeppity. In less polite terms, the big 2.5 are America’s crackwhores, and crackwhores need johns. When House GOPpers waved around photos of Smarts as if they’d make American men’s peepees shrink, they were being johns. When people bought the Hummer H3 (a surgically-enhanced GMC Canyon) they were being johns. I’m not going to be as praiseworthy here, because so many American-marque cars for the US market still have crappy plasticky interiors, generate too many HP that never get transferred to the road, and balk at corners, but that’s a consequence of trying to serve a "traditional" US market while trying to compete on raw price terms with the foreign marques. GM and Ford have more latitude to innovate and lead the market in other parts of the world.
(Award-winning cars in Europe this year? The [GM] Opel Insignia and the Ford Fiesta.)
Now, the fundamental issue here is the one from the playlet featured on this here blog a while back: costs from when it took more people to build cars, and before the Japanese opened shop. When you buy a GM vehicle, you’re sending a few bucks to those retired UAW guys who built the ’68 Corvette.
Tonal Crow
Corker is, of course, a GOPing 5th-columnist who should be deported to Shagrat’s tower (or at least South Waziristan, preferably wrapped in a pink burka with "I love Bush" boldly written on it). But this entry’s criticism is off-base; Toyota’s operating loss is in no way equivalent to GM’s near-bankruptcy.
El Cid
pseudonymous: I, too, hated the preference for SUV’s and luxury pickup gas guzzler.
But given that we gave the public huge tax incentives to buy them, I have to moderate my rage.
We excused passenger SUV’s and luxury pickups from the same fuel economy standards as regular passenger vehicles on the claim that they were really ‘work’ vehicles. They also escaped the ‘gas guzzler’ tax generally, as well as receiving the general tax breaks of work vehicles.
And then we gave small businesses direct tax breaks, during the Bush Jr. years up to $100,000 — yes, $100,000 off of taxes, not off of income — with which to buy new vehicles but only those above 6500 lbs. That’s why all these jerkoff small businesses went out and bought H2s and Land Rovers — because we made them free. Several of the companies I worked for did just that. Once in the middle of layoffs.
And, of course, both Republicans and "Third Way" Democrats were happy to give into the U.S. automakers’ whines to keep fuel economy standards lower than our foreign rivals.
So, yeah, the consumers should have been more grown-up, but we helped them make bad decisions.
James F. Elliott
Ah, the GOP just got served a chilled glass of straight shut the fuck up.
Duke of Earl
@NonWonderDog:
Never had a Lexus, the resale value is too high and we always buy used. We have had three Infinitis though, a Q45, a J30t and a G20, all were great cars. I thought of the Q45 as a state patrol car with a leather interior and a nice sound system, I had the Q up over a hundred one day with a car full of yakking women and they never noticed, that’s smooth and quiet. I did find out though that with the sunroof open and the windows down the Q turned into a giant vacuum cleaner at about about 85, sucked everything loose in the car out the sunroof in a couple of seconds.
The J30 is actually a 300ZX Nissan under the hood with four doors and a different body style while the G20 is by far the nicest appointed small car I’ve ever driven.
Yeah, I think most Mercedes drivers in the US are pretentious yuppies or similar types.
Duke of Earl
@John Cole:
To be honest that’s really all most cars need, decent maintenance and don’t beat the crap out of them.
There aren’t that many truly shitty cars being made any more, the competition has been too intense in the car business.
NonWonderDog
That was actually an Alan Partridge reference, since referring to Lexuses in the plural as Lexi makes me giggle. I didn’t think anyone would get it.
Ben
Anecdotal evidence, but I’ve owned nothing but American cars… first car was a Ford Escort (for 10 years), next had an Olds Intrigue (5 years) and a Chevy Trailblazer (5 years)… now I own an Impala and a Taurus X.
I abused the crap out of the Escort… and I’ve never had a serious problem with any of them. I bought the two latest more because I wanted to than because I needed to.
The lack of profitability of our car manufacturers has more to do with the state of our health care system is this screwed up country than it does with the quality of the product.
You’ll never convince me that Volkswagon, for example, has a better product on the road.
I always found it laughable that your average Repub asshole claimed that taxes in this country were too high as I watched manufacturing jobs get moved to Canada… I’ll give you a hint… taxes aren’t lower in Canada… but health care costs are.
Dead Horse Flogger (Certainly Not The First One)
@The Moar You Know:
What he said.
This cannot be stressed enough.
It’s pretty cheap to pay for someone’s retirement in 2015 – if you start paying (i.e. investing retirement money) in 1975, or even 1985.
If you only start setting aside money five years in advance or so (let’s say in 2010), it’s incredibly expensive and you’re screwed.
Basically, UAW members are being fucking robbed, because the Big Three couldn’t be arsed to make adequate investments when it still would have been pretty cheap to do so. The UAW is only playing ball because if the Big Three go down noone will receive any benefits whatsoever.
In a just world this would be called what it is: criminal negligence on behalf of the manufacterers (who undoubtedly preferred making a quick buck over caring for the long term health of their operation).
Original Lee
@Xenos:
I think that phrase will not die unless we come up with a new name for the current situation. My vote is for "The Great Sea of Chaos," a la Brust’s Dragaera novels. IMO the current state of things resembles how tangible chaos works in those books.
Xenos
"The Great Shitpile" is a great term, but is too specific to include all the effects of the financial collapse. Something with a post-imperial vibe would work for the US, but we need a term that will capture the collapse of the European system and all the dislocation in the third world as well. My imagination fails me.
Duke of Earl
@NonWonderDog:
Lexuses sounds awkward to me and triggers my not-formally-trained-but-usually-accurate grammatical sense instilled in me by my Received Pronunciation accented mother many decades ago.
Come to think of it my daughter got her whim of iron legitimately because both my mother and my wife’s mother were that way too.
Duke of Earl
@Xenos:
I vote for The Great Suck, as in they sucked every nickle from our pockets.
AnneLaurie
Let’s stick with ‘The Bush-Cheney Depression’, because the anti-American traitors like Corker are already trying to spread the ‘Obama Depression’ calumny.
Zifnab
My family went through a Buick Le Saber, a Dodge Caravan, a Jaguar (British, I know), and a Ford Taurus before my dad finally broke down and purchased an Infinite J30. Any given one of those American cars spent upwards of six months to a year in the shop over the life of the vehicle and we tended to ditch them after eight to ten years. The J30 was in the shop 5 times over the life of it (twice over speaker issues) and we kept that thing for a solid 16 years running until it got flooded during a hurricane and molded out.
I have never had a good experience with American cars and – by contrast – every Japanese vehicle that passed through my family has been a dream. I’ve got nothing but contempt for the US car industry.
That said, I am highly pissed at the US Auto industry for a number of reasons – fuel economy, reliability, visual appeal, political reasons – but I’d hand over the entire $700 billion financial bailout to the auto execs after the last month of criminal bullshittery conducted by the Wall Street dinosaurs. At least then I could feel better knowing people actually doing their fucking jobs were getting paid.
El Cid
I say the Ronald Reagan Memorial George Bush Jr. Depression.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Dude.
If you went through all those vehicles, then bought a J30 which lasted sixteen years— you’re talking about the vehicles that Detroit built that all can agree were shitty.
But you cannot compare a 2008 Chevy Malibu with a 1991 Buick LeSabre.
Joel
The main difference between the US big three and their Japanese competitors was sales.
US sales were declining – rapidly in some areas – whereas Japanese sales were growing. Q.E.D.
Now, you can deduce why that is the case, but it has nothing to do with labor costs, connections, or conspiracy theories.
Jovan Jovanovic
My vote goes to, "The Big Suck." Just because it made me lol.
Regarding economics 101, nobody should spend more than 10% of their annual income on a vehicle and more than a weeks wages on a mortgage. Who’s dumb enough to be buying new vehicles anyway? Gee…wonder why they can’t make their mortgage payment? Maybe they bought a house they can’t afford much like the new SUV in the garage. There are hundreds of thousands of killer used vehicles for pennies on the dollar that still have a lot of piss and vinegar left in them. Stay within da means blue jeans.
Laura W
@John Cole:
Wow.
I once knew a man who did that. You are the second person in my long life I have heard of who does that.
Why? is my main thought.
He and I were co-workers and had attended a horrendously long and torturous seminar in Durango, CO. I made the mistake of riding in his truck with him. After he gassed up on the way home, when at long last my two-day nightmare had ended, he had to take another few minutes to log his gas/mileage stats. It was all I could do to not kill him. Or start sobbing from sheer frustration and desire to START DRIVING HOME NOW.
S’OK. I’m sure I have comparable OCD rituals.
But at least mine make sense.
Xenos
@El Cid: How about calling it the Neoliberal Catastrophe. Douchebags like Corker and Shelby would gladly use the term because they would not know they were talking about themselves when they use it.
Duke of Earl
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
Even Americans have long memories when they are personally shit upon.
Which is why a lot of us shy away from American cars.
Burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice, shame on me.
John Cole
@Laura W: Simple. Because if your fuel efficiency declines, it is the first sign there is something wrong with your car.
Laura W
@John Cole: All righty then!
I’m such a girl.
The Moar You Know
@Duke of Earl: Lexus vs. Aviator – the deciding factor was the suspension. I am certain that, if I were to go off road, the Lexus would have a better ride. However, on road the Lexus is a little rough, whereas the Lincoln is as smooth as silk. A second factor was that the Aviator is just a fraction less wide, and that was needed as I have a VERY tiny garage.
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko: a friend of my mother’s turned the key in her Jaguar and it exploded; blew the hood right off the car. She was fine. The cause was a leaky fuel pump. I knew those cars were shit (I’ve restored two Austin Healeys, a Sprite and a Mark 3000, so I know the horror of British steel) but all the same I was surprised.
The Moar You Know
@Laura W: If you’re driving for work purposes, you must keep a milage log. I do the same thing myself if I’m doing company business.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
I really want to scream, "but it’s not faiiirrrrrr!!!"
The Big Three finally start really getting their shit together— and those great mumping villains on Wall Street screw the entire industry over by buggering the credit markets.
Laura W
@The Moar You Know: Well, yes, I do recall the good old days of mileage reimbursement, now that you mention it. I made a lot of money over a few careers with that expense report item!
I got the sense that John, and my co-worker, were doing it more to pinpoint exactly how many MPGs they were getting, and to me, being the impractical spendthrift I am, I’m like: So What?
But now that I have learned it can be tied to the need for servicing, I’m
like: So What?far smarter for the inquiry.I’m lame with cars. I can’t make excuses for myself. I turn the key, the music comes on, and I go.
The rest is left to far smarter people.
bago
Working on hitting 260 k on my nissan.
Duke of Earl
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
If they had just screwed the auto industry it would have been a disaster, as it is they have screwed damn near everyone, that counts as a near-extinction event.
What’s really galling is that the real architects of this utter calamity are going to mostly walk away with millions in their pockets and I doubt any major player will ever do one minute of time.
I thought my outrage gland had long since been drained of every drop of bile, I was wrong.
You can arm yourself, alarm yourself
But there’s nowhere you can run
Cause a man with a briefcase
Can steal more money
Than any man with a gun
Don Henley .. Gimme What You Got
Bob In Pacifica
Toyota’s immediate problem is the lack of sales. Nobody’s buying cars now. Would you? If Americans aren’t buying Camrys and Priuses the folks at Toyota are screwed.
Their next problem is that the yen is plumping up versus the falling dollar. I don’t follow currency trading but I read somewhere that the yen gained 25% against the dollar. That can suck out the profit from cars built overseas.
Their third problem is that Toyota and other foreign companies who manufacture in North America use many of the same parts manufacturers that the Big Three do. If those manufacturers sink because of the demise of the Big Three that then kills or at least disrupts domestic parts suppliers for the foreign car companies here.
So, while I drive a Corolla built at the joint GM-Toyota NUMMI plant, when the parts for the Chevies stop being made, they stop being made for Toyotas too.
Badtux
I log my mileage to see the health of my engine. I don’t bother saving the mileage more than enough to see how many mpg I’m getting, but I still do it.
Regarding my luck quotient, I’ve owned five American cars, one Japanese car, and one Korean/Japanese car (a Kia with a Mazda drivetrain and Ford nameplate). Every single one of these vehicles was bullet-proof, even the Chevette and S-10 (though I did have to weld the top of the shock tower back onto the Chevette after it rusted out in ’94, at which point I traded it in on the Ranger, which then got totalled shortly thereafter). The Aspire and Forester were not significantly more reliable than the American cars, and the American cars and trucks had the advantage of being easily repaired by any moron wrench, while the Aspire and Subaru were very expensive to repair (a new air conditioner compressor for the Aspire — the old one wore out by 80,000 miles — was over $900 for the *parts*, the only source was the dealer, and parts for the Subaru were similarly $$$$).
As for my ’06 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, so far, so good. No (zero) quality problems with it, other than that one of the air conditioner knobs broke off one day. I checked out an aftermarket parts catalog and bought a set of three aftermarket ones for $19.95. Big fuggin’ deal. Regarding Jeeps and simplicity, the newer Jeep Wranglers have ABS, traction control, all that. Not simple like the old Jeep CJ’s. Still bog reliable though. My ’06 doesn’t have a lot of the fancy stuff but still has cruise control, a modern HVAC system, 6-CD stereo, etc. Just some heavy duty Cleveland steel. Stout. Indestructible. Easily and cheaply repaired if it *does* break. Only known weakness in mine is the crankcase position sensor, which should be replaced every 75,000 miles or so because they have a habit of going out at about 90k miles (at which point the engine becomes a lump of heavy iron). It rides a bit jouncy and handles like an offroad vehicle (which it is, I have the dents on my skid plates to prove it), but that’s because of the shocks and springs and tires I’ve outfitted it with, which are set up for offroad purposes to get me to some places I wouldn’t be able to go in a more street-oriented 4×4. Some of the folks I meet out there in the back country are driving ten or fifteen year old Wranglers. I don’t see any reason why this Wrangler won’t be amongst that number ten years from now, unless I get t-boned by some moron like with the Ford Ranger.
Point being, every one of my cars has done the job that it was supposed to do, and done it in a reasonably reliable manner regardless of who made it. The only items that ever went out were known maintenance items like water pumps and alternators and fan clutches. Some of the things I swapped out myself, others I had a garage do it. I pity the poor folks who got lemons, or who don’t know how to take care of cars thus either get ripped off by the garage or don’t get the necessary services done thus end up with e.g. a timing belt breaking and taking out the valve train, but none of that has anything to do with who made the car. The reason more of my cars have been American has to do with the fact that Japanese cars are more expensive than American cars especially when it comes to service $$$ where parts are significantly more expensive than for American cars, but don’t do any better job of getting you around.
Jay C
@Laura W:
Now you know three: I started keeping a log on my Mini Cooper when I bought it just to see if their mileage claims were justified (they are: 30.92 avg over three years) – but I limit my obsessiveness to scrawling the mileage on the gas receipts I get and logging them later.
Besides, Mini gave me a little notebook as part of the new-owners welcome-kit, and, since one usually gets crap-all with a new car, I didn’t want it to go to waste.
OCD of a different sort…..
Xenos
@Duke of Earl: Don Henley ripped that off of Mario Puzo, who put those words in the mouth Don Corleone.
DFH that I am, I posit Woody said it best, in one of the Dust Bowl Ballads
Yes, as through this world I’ve wandered
I’ve seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.
Laura W
@Jay C: Well, a little notebook as part of the new-owners welcome-kit is a whole ‘nother issue entirely!
Two close friends drive mini-Cs, and while I am definitely more of an SUV ‘ho (due to how much stuff I have to lug for work and five pets), they are far more roomy and efficient than one would think. They are incredibly popular here in Western NC.
Jay C
@Laura W:
Well, in the interests of full-disclosure, I have to admit to having an SUV also (Mrs. C and I are definitely of the Stuff Generation): the Mini is the second/summer/fun vehicle (it’s the convertible) – but Minis"…incredibly popular here in Western NC."?? – I would have sworn that would be pickup-truck country! Will wonders never cease….. ?
Laura W
@Jay C:
Nope, not entirely. I live an hour south of Asheville, and a half hour north of Jackson (newly blue for Obama) county. The state is a changing. I’ve only lived here two years, and had no idea what to expect, except I knew I was moving to one of the more high income, highly educated, progressive areas, made possible by the career opp that moved me here. Mostly luck and good timing on my part.
People have funny ideas about NC. I sure did before I moved here. The composition of the residents, both full and part time, surprised the hell out of me. In a good way. Nothing proved that to me more than the process we just went through in November.
Brian Griffin
@Laura W
we drove thru NC at the start of the summer, from GA to NY (in our GM saab)– it was the only place that was literally covered up with Obama stickers. we never saw posters in restaurant windows in our liberal atlanta enclave, like we saw in NC.
@Ivan
"The Big Three finally start really getting their shit together"
No kidding–lots of good things in the works. sadly looks like long-term investment is just too risky. would be a real shame if this forces the 3 to go back to the short-term thinking that led them here in the first place.
Conservatively Liberal
I have only owned American iron though my wife had a ’77 Toyota Celica when we met. We got rid of it after a few years because everybody kept running into the left rear quarterpanel. I replaced that thing three times and we decided that we would get rid of it while we could get some cash out of it. Other than being a target of opportunity, the Toy was a reliable car. I pulled the old engine out with 145,000 miles on it because I had rebuilt another engine for it that I hopped up with a Crane cam, Hooker header, ported, polished and cc’d the head, a four barrel intake topped off with a Holley 390 cfm carb. The old engine was in excellent shape so I re-ringed it, glaze broke the cylinders, knurled the piston skirts, slapped some new main & rod bearings and a new oil pump in it and sold it to a friend who had a SR-5 pickup in need of an engine.
With the five speed, that little sucker was like a mini Mustang (Celica hatchback model), it hauled ass and got great mileage. We went on a 4,500 mile trip in it once the new engine was in and I had a blast racing a Porsche 911 on I-90 going through western Montana. I had the car up to 130 at one point and the Porsche and I traded positions for over an hour of driving. When it came to tabs time I was worried that the engine would not pass the smog test but it did so with flying colors. The guy who did the test could tell the car was not stock by the rumble in the exhaust so he had me pop the hood. He started giving me grief about no emissions gear on the engine (but I did leave the vapor canister!) and I pointed out that it passed the test. He went and got the boss, who was a woman so I thought I was dead meat (carz iz a guyz thang, right?). She looked it over and said "it passed, what’s the problem?". The guy sputtered about the emissions systems being gone but she cut him off and repeated that it had passed.
I got my certificate and thanked her very politely. :)
As far as my own cars, nothing but Plymouths and Fords for me. As a mechanic, I saw what ran and what didn’t. Forget GM products, way too troublesome with repairs. When my MIL passed away, the wife inherited her ’89 Olds Cutlass. I have nicknamed the car the "Drama Queen" because of the way it is constantly breaking down. Her mom bought it new and it was constantly in the shop with ignition problems or other small crap. When she passed away, the car had been in her garage for a few months since it was dead yet again. I checked it out and found the ignition system was toast. The main module was cooked, the coil box was carbon tracked to death and the ignition coils were firing weakly.
Ever since we took possession of the car it has been a source of endless repairs. The headliner separated and hanged down on your head, two alternators replaced (which requires the removal of the intake manifold), all four wheel bearings shot, transmission shot, three more ignition modules until I solved GM’s engineering problem with the ignition module (mounting it literally ‘in’ and on top of a hot, buzzing four cylinder engine was not smart), various MAP, O2, temp and sundry sensors, two fuel pumps, two electric windows breaking and falling into the door (the tracks, not the windows), having to tear the engine apart to replace the water pump drive and water pump so also doing a pre-emptive head gasket job (another Quad 4 weakness) since the whole top of the engine was almost off anyway (just for a water pump) and endless other problems like the peeling factory paint job and electrical shorts.
Good thing I am a mechanic or someone would have gotten rich off of it. Whenever I find a problem with a vehicle I look for the reason for the problem. If it can be improved by making a change then I do it (like the ignition system on the car or transmission mods like a shift kit to cut down on clutch slippage). My wife wants to keep the car so I gave it a top notch home paint job (2K metalflake midnight opal and glass flake/coral pearl in the 2K clearcoat) and it is slowly becoming a better car. The mileage is nothing to bitch about though: 28 city and 34-36 highway and the car only has 119,000 miles on it.
My experiences with my Ford and Plymouth vehicles has been excellent. Both brands have been very reliable and minimal in maintenance with solid powertrains and solid construction. I restored (and customized) my Mustang at 180,000+ miles. Now I have over 235,000 miles on it and it is still racking up the miles.
While imports tend to be well designed and built, they get you on the parts end of the transaction. German or Japanese, them parts (and service) is expensive. American parts tend to be much lower in cost for a comparable part in a foreign model.
Beej
I’ll agree that there isn’t a great deal of difference, today, in the quality of American and Japanese autos (except for Chrysler products, of course). But there is still a pretty noticeable difference in service philosophy. In my experience (I know, anecdotal) Toyota dealers, at least, really excel at service.
True story: I noticed a pinhead-sized fleck of black paint had come off the eject button on the in-dash CD player. I stopped in to my Toyota dealer intending to get one of those little tubes of paint to touch it up. The service scheduler took a look at it, escorted me to the customer lounge, bought me a Diet Pepsi. Twenty minutes later, he handed me the keys to my car, no charge. Did they paint the eject button? No. They installed a brand new CD player. How many Big 3 dealers would do that?
Duke of Earl
@Conservatively Liberal:
It depends on what parts you are talking about, regular maintenance parts aren’t that bad, front brake rotors for our J30 Infiniti were less than $30 and it’s over $10 just to turn the old ones now assuming you can find someone to do it. Brake pads are about the same as domestics.
Oil and filters are identical in price as are spark plugs.
Stuff like alternators and starters can be a bit more on imports but from what I’ve seen the prices on these things for domestics are climbing pretty quickly too.
For a lot of things, the suppliers are the same for both domestic and Japanese parts, as has been pointed out several times. Other than one BMW 325e I’ve never had a German car so I don’t know much about them.
Conservatively Liberal
Maintenance parts are usually cheap since because of the economies of scale. I am talking about parts used in major repairs, imports are generally more expensive than domestics in that arena. I worked in a Porsche+Audi dealership garage and I know the cost of the ‘good stuff’. We fixed all kinds of imports and domestics (such as trade-ins) too. As we would say when ordering a high priced part, ‘they sure are proud of this sucker’. This applies to fairly well to side-by-side comparisons of equivalent import and domestic vehicles. For example, even though American luxury/performance car makers charge a premium for their ‘good stuff’ parts, the equivalent luxury/performance import parts prices still put the domestic parts prices to shame.
Major repairs on an equivalent automobiles (import to domestic) costs more, no doubt about it, but we make up for it on our motorcycles.
Any part for a Harley will cost more than an equivalent import part would. ;)
kg
it takes all of 20 seconds to write down how much gas you put in and the odometer reading.
once your mpgs start going down, you need a tune-up (or something)
Bob
Zifnab:
They dumped the EV-1, a car they built to satisfy the CA government, because it lost them $50,000 a copy. Toyota also blazed ahead with the Prius, another "green" car that loses the manufacturer money on each copy. If the D3 follow your logic, they will build a bunch of unprofitable cars and go out of buisness even quicker.
At what point to you miss the fact that last year Toyota invested $1.5B into a truck plant that builds pickups that are less efficient than the American trucks? Did you also miss the roll out of the 2008 Toyota Sequoia, a new, Tahoe-like SUV that’s bigger and more fuel thristy than the Chevy?
Clearly it’s not just the D3 that didn’t see this coming.
Excuse me while I go test drive a new F-150.
Ben
I have a 2004 Pontiac Vibe GT that was assembled in Fremont, CA. It’s a fine vehicle, assembled in the US. Happens to have a Toyota engine – it was significantly cheaper than a Toyota Matrix, its twin, would have cost me and I think it looks better and I know it fits me a bit better – so even if the price was the same I would have gotten the Pontiac. It’s a really fine car that has been completely reliable and tight for the 70k or so miles I’ve driven it.
I’m looking into getting a Pontiac G8 GXP right now. Those assembled in Australia but its engine is from the US.
Anyway, the whole crapload of whining from people concerning ‘their money’ going to bail out companies who ‘make products nobody wants to buy’. Well, *I* buy those products. General Motors has the fifth fewest employees of any automobile company but is tied with Toyota for the most vehicles sold worldwide (2007). People are buying the product, people who have a choice.
As an example of equivalent logic, I do not use commercial banks. Everything *I* do goes through my credit union. So why should ‘my’ tax money go to bail out the capacity of commercial banks to be well-capitalized and have loans?
Parenthetically, some credit unions have amazingly good loan rates just now because their inherent stability has gotten their members to move their mobile funds into them. It might be worth joining one you’re eligible for!
Ben
Oh, and @DrDave, I got the Vibe GT about 3 months before I got my own Dr-ness (not medical drness, math) and now I’m lookin’ at my second Pontiac. So, my first and soon to be second cars with my own money at the ages of 28 and 33 are domestics.
The real thing that has tended to hurt the domestics has been that youngsters’ perceptions of them lag the current products by a few years because they’re dealing with the used market. Older people tend to get their exposure to new brands in the rental market. One of the smartest things GM did was cutting back heavily on their fleet sales to rental companies a few years back. Lots of people aren’t getting exposed to stripped down product that has been abused. By contrast, Chrysler has been dumping all their unsold stuff onto the rental market; almost every time I travel these days I get a Chrysler product for the rental.
Jake
I have driven a 1998 Ford Taurus for the last few years now and I have been really happy with the quality. My brother urged me against buying a Taurus because of the poor perception of quality. I have been interested in maybe getting a Prius when my Taurus finally breaks down. I don’t know anyone else among my friends who drive a Ford right now.
There was an article in BusinessWeek in 2007 about how Six Sigma might have helped Chrysler. The University of St. Thomas offers a Six Sigma Green Belt Certificate Program at their Minneapolis, MN campus.