Comments on: Government Motors

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By: Supplements for Men

Supplements for Men — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:26:28 +0000

Wonderful post but I was wanting to know if you could write a litte more on this subject? I’d be very thankful if you could elaborate a little bit more. Thank you!

By: MrMajstyk

MrMajstyk — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:07:52 +0000

I have worked for many dealerships in the past as a salesperson or sales manager…Ford, Chrysler-Jeep, GM, BMW, Acura, Toyota…for many years, and I know what the consumers felt when they looked at the so-called American cars…”somewhere along the line, we forgot how to make cars.” SUV’s…sure. Trendy, trucky and decent looking. But the cars? Let me quote a customer that was looking at a Malibu back in the late 90′s, “Does it really cost less to make an ugly car than to make a good looking one?” And, “What’s with all this plastic crap?”
We used to make great looking, quality vehicles, but that was a long time ago. When the foreign makes came in and started selling, it seemed like the US automakers were saying “OK, if that’s what people want, we’ll build THOSE!” But they couldn’t. They had to cut WAY too many corners to be competitive price-wise, and still couldn’t match the overall quality. Was it the US Auto unions, health care, increasing costs of doing business, greed, corporate mis-steps, marketing, design, or quality control that saw our industry plummet? Sadly, yes to all those, and more.
So…we start looking back to our glory days…Mustang, Camaro, Challenger, Charger, GTO, Thunderbird…a few “hits”, a few “misses”, but its pretty clear that we are longing for a time when an “American Car” meant something. Back then, we didn’t try to copy the imports and try to compete with them at THEIR game. Their cars were considered “not up to our standards”. But, they came and were successful at building pretty good cars pretty cheaply, so we tried to jump on the band wagon…somebody else’s band wagon. And we failed. And we lost market share. And profits. And pride.
So, if what we do is simply follow trends, then let’s step aside and let those who know what to do, do it. OR, we can step up and do what we used to do best: CREATE trends. Make cars that are the envy of every automaker, desired by every driver, even if it costs a bit more. But give me quality and looks for my money! Come on, lets see a new Impala, a new Malibu, and lets see them actually live up to their namesakes this time. Do it right, or don’t do it at all.

By: Ed Burley

Ed Burley — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:11:19 +0000

“The elite class has known all along that the real problem at GM was that it built too many SUVs and light trucks and not enough of the fuel-efficient cars that consumers really want.”

Are you serious? If it wasn’t for the SUVs and light trucks, GM would have been out of business decades ago. Their “fuel-efficient cars” were garbage, unable to last more than about 80,000 miles. The trucks had a history of 200,000+ miles.

Case in point, the Chevy Aveo. I rented one this past spring. NEVER AGAIN! Oh, it got good gas mileage, as long as I went 50 miles an hour on the freeway. In addition, if I went over 55, the wind howled through the vehicle so loudly that I couldn’t hear the AM-FM radio (yes folks, it didn’t even have a CD player).

The most incredibly stupid business decision ever by GM, and ignored by this article, was the fact that their full-size autos, powered by the 3.8L 6-cylinder engine was getting over 30+ miles to the gallon, which beat nearly everything on the road worth driving. Any vehicle that got better mileage was a tin can on wheels (like the Aveo).

Get the story right guys. It wasn’t anything except horrific engineering, and poor workmanship. Ask any GM employee and they’ll tell you how many crap vehicles went out the door, expecting the dealerships to fix the problems. Why did they ship bad product? Two reasons: 1) the union folks on the floor didn’t give a crap about building quality, and 2) GM didn’t give a crap about fixing the problem on the line, so they limited the number of vehicles that could be rejected, and shipped the rest.

GM’s “green cars” will be absolute junk, and I cannot wait to see all the Obamaheads broke down on the side of the road in them. I’ll keep driving my 2001 Nissan Sentra and my 1999 Dodge Ram 15-passenger Van.

By: The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty | For Freedom's Sake

The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty | For Freedom's Sake — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:46:00 +0000

[...] Government Motors By Michael Heberling Government Motors by Michael Heberling Michael Heberling (mheber01@baker.edu) is president of the Baker… [...]

By: Two Decades Since the Fall | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty

Two Decades Since the Fall | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:08:03 +0000

[...] Chrysler and General Motors, which is a sign of how things are going these days. Michael Heberling analyzes this venture into socialist ownership of the means of production. Christopher Westley follows up [...]