# Why American cars were so lousy for so many years



## ProfessorCook (Jan 19, 2009)

I don't know if you're interested in this, but This American Life did a radio show about the production of American cars vs. the Japanese cars. It brings up union issues, corporate philosophy, and production line goals. It explains a lot.

American workers would work drunk, play cards, have sex... On the production line, if something got installed incorrectly, they just kept the car going down the line, layering on all kinds of additional parts, right over the error figuring they'd fix it later.

What a mess.

The promo is here:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/sites/all/play_music/play_full.php?play=403&promo=1

The .mp3 is here:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/sites/all/play_music/play_full.php?play=403&podcast=1

Just FYI.


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## westwest888 (Jun 12, 2005)

I wasn't aware that anyone has gotten laid in an American car since the Corvette stingray.


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## ProfessorCook (Jan 19, 2009)

A 1981 Chevy G20 panel van worked just fine.


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## BMWFTW91 (Dec 23, 2009)

This is very surprising.


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## 1CEBITN (May 4, 2008)

Not real surprising when unions protect employees who are underperforming compared to their peers. When the only thing that matters for a raise is time on the job (seniority) why would you work harder than the yahoo next to you?


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## sdbrandon (Mar 18, 2006)

I don't think the issue was poorly designed and built American cars. To blame issues on the union is rediculous. 

The issue was consumers continued to purchase [email protected]! for decades.

If there is no demand for [email protected], manufacturers stop making [email protected]

So while we can blame unions, quality control, etc. the reality is these are merely symptoms of an underlying issue.

Why on earth someone would buy a poor product is beyond me. Especially when there was years of reliability research available.

If you go to a restaurant and the food sucks all the time, why would you go back?

Now I admit GM's leadership has issues. But their customers seemed happy with [email protected] as they kept coming back.

GM should have been bankrupt 20 years ago. I am not sure why consumers floated them for so long.


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## cinoh (May 15, 2007)

Speaking only for this consumer, I purchased a [email protected] Buick in 1983, thinking that I was buying a high quality automobile. When it turned out to be utter [email protected] in a dozen different ways, I made up my mind to never buy another GM car. That's how this one consumer chose to vote in the marketplace. Multiply by a whole lot of [email protected] consumers, and the result was kinda inevitable. (I replaced the Buick after a few years with my first bimmer--E30 325es--and have loved the driving experience every day since.)


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## Nordic_Kat (Aug 5, 2009)

Thanks for posting the link, P.C.

I found it very interesting in light of watching the BMW Munich virtual plant tour (where the E90 is produced) found here:

http://www.bmw-plant-munich.com/lowband/com/en/index.html

Especially interesting was the description of the workers relative to how BMW describes their employees as "motivated associates".


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## Ilovemycar (Feb 19, 2010)

I have heard stories both for and against unions, but one story stuck with me pretty good. I know an extremely successful business owner, self made success, who many decades ago was working at some sort of factory using a basic drill. He got written up twice. One of them was for being too efficient of a worker, making everyone else look bad. Yes, he was written up for it. The other time happened when the little light bulb on the drill went out, and he quickly found a replacement, so that he could right back to work. He got written up on that one, because the union made sure the "specialized technician" was called upon to do that job for some ridiculously high fee.

Anyhoo, speaking of manufacturing plants, I honestly cannot remember if I've linked the VW transparent factory here, and even if I haven't, I'm sure someone else already has. It's pretty neat!


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## dhstadt (Apr 14, 2008)

I haven't noticed they have gotten any better. Drove an '07 Impala to the PC to pick-up my 328i. It reminded me of my '65 BelAire I had way back when. Inside was super cheap plastic and it handled like my '65. I honestly did not see much if any improvement in the 40 plus years between the two cars.


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## S93D (Apr 24, 2008)

sdbrandon said:


> If you go to a restaurant and the food sucks all the time, why would you go back?
> 
> Now I admit GM's leadership has issues. But their customers seemed happy with [email protected] as they kept coming back.
> 
> GM should have been bankrupt 20 years ago. I am not sure why consumers floated them for so long.


For a long time, GM did things right but could have done things much better.

In the 1950's, American cars were the sized to fit market demand. BMWs were too small and underpowered. American cars had enough dealers. BMWs had few dealers. American cars were early adopters of power steering and automatic transmission. Some things were poorly designed and some workmanship was poor. These are areas that American car companies could have done better and unions could have tried to motivate their workers.

In the 1970's, high fuel prices made Japanese cars more popular. In the 1980's, BMWs started being more popular as they were no longer underpowered and American cars became underpowered to meet federal standards.

Now the defect rate in GM cars is far better than in the 1960's. But a bad reputation takes years or decades to erase. Hyundai had a bad reputation in the 1980's and only 30 years later is it better. It will be at least another 10 years before Hyundai's reputation could equal Honda (if it ever does).


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## FCBayernFTW (Oct 10, 2005)

2011 Camaro SS2.... ummmmmm yummmy (even the Halos look sweet on it)

(hook line and sinker) I must admit that this is the first muscle car I wanted since smokey and the bandit hit theaters......Did I just show my age?


BTW Hyundai will never have the brand image of a Honda. They need to consider an "upmarket" brand like Acura or Infinity to have any status at all. The genesis would have been a good start. Unfortunately the Hyundai badge will forever evoke images of econobox crap hitched with a ton of unreliability.


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## gt0279a (Dec 29, 2007)

I'm driving an '10 Buick LaCrosse rental while I'm waiting to pick up my car at the PDC next Friday.

Beyond the floaty ride, it looks like an unfinished jr. designers sketch on the inside. It includes impossible to see out of oblong side mirrors and an all too trendy extremely high belt line. Exterior panels don't line up and material gaps look way out of tolerance. 

It's hard to image who would ever want to buy or drive this car, but you can't blame the U.S. consumers for the continued production of this type of vehicle.

Even when consumers stopped buying them, Ford, GM, etc still have such huge fleet contracts that fuel their revenue,


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## fuz (Feb 6, 2002)

There is plenty of blame, in all areas of manufacture for the failure of the US auto industry. Complete, total, and epic failure that nearly toasted them all. The rest of the world (particularly Japan) didn't actually do anything amazing, it's just that they were significantly less bad.


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## BMWFTW91 (Dec 23, 2009)

gt0279a said:


> I'm driving an '10 Buick LaCrosse rental while I'm waiting to pick up my car at the PDC next Friday.
> 
> Beyond the floaty ride, it looks like an unfinished jr. designers sketch on the inside. It includes impossible to see out of oblong side mirrors and an all too trendy extremely high belt line. Exterior panels don't line up and material gaps look way out of tolerance.
> 
> ...


isnt the Buick Lacrosse a rebadged Opel Insignia ? Or is that the Buick Regal they got coming out, Not sure, but I know it is one of the two. Gm cannot make cars for crap, they depend mostly on Opel and Holden in Australia to design and make their cars.


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## BMWFTW91 (Dec 23, 2009)

jocamryn said:


> 2011 Camaro SS2.... ummmmmm yummmy (even the Halos look sweet on it)
> 
> (hook line and sinker) I must admit that this is the first muscle car I wanted since smokey and the bandit hit theaters......Did I just show my age?
> 
> BTW Hyundai will never have the brand image of a Honda. They need to consider an "upmarket" brand like Acura or Infinity to have any status at all. The genesis would have been a good start. Unfortunately the Hyundai badge will forever evoke images of econobox crap hitched with a ton of unreliability.


VEry true, but a lot of companies now are starting to fear hyundai. They got the Hyundai Equus coming to the states, I think next year and that thing really competes with the 7 series and merc S class. It's also going to be thousands of dollars less.


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## boxerman (Dec 13, 2004)

Got a buick enclave rental even my parents who know nothing about cars commented as passengers about how poor the ride was. It was boath flaoty to the point of seasickness and at the same time crashed into every road imperfection, and we were in florida where the roads are smooth to start with. Yes the engine was smooth and the tranny excellent, but it had no power. The steering in general felt good. Yet the switchgear felt beyond cheap totaly ruing whatever feeling of luxury the otherwise decent interior imparted. Took it back to avis and got a ford flex. The interioir quality was one notch down on the enclave and yet the automotive press lauds the quality of the flex interior, switchgear felt quality though. The motor on the flex was unrefined and had less power than the buick, the tranny was a generation behind. But the ride and suspension were actualy quite good, pretty close to a european standard. So we have two american vehicles both with some degree of development but ultimatly let down by serious compromise as in each car got 7 out of 10 ponts right. I gues the domestics cannot help themselvs but to ladle some crapola into every product they make.


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## magbarn (Jan 28, 2003)

BMWFTW91 said:


> VEry true, but a lot of companies now are starting to fear hyundai. They got the Hyundai Equus coming to the states, I think next year and that thing really competes with the 7 series and merc S class. It's also going to be thousands of dollars less.


This is Hyundai's Phaeton... Have you stepped in a Hyundai dealer? As crappy as BMW dealers are, BMW dealers (at least here in So-cal) are like the Ritz Carlton vs. Hyundai's Motel 6. People willing to spend >$50,000 aren't going into a Hyundai dealership...


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## S93D (Apr 24, 2008)

magbarn said:


> People willing to spend >$50,000 aren't going into a Hyundai dealership...


That's what they said about Lexus. In the early days, fewer than 200 Lexuses were sold in Germany. That's higher now and very high in the US


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## jmsent (Sep 26, 2006)

S93D said:


> That's what they said about Lexus. In the early days, fewer than 200 Lexuses were sold in Germany. That's higher now and very high in the US


But Lexus started off as a high end brand. The first product they sold was the LS 400 which was a ripoff of a Mercedes 500 series. It was quite a good car and a very good value. Their showrooms were elegant and their customer service impeccable. Hyundai is selling a pretty nice car in the Genesis, but it's no BMW competitor regardless of what they say. They offer a lot of car for the money, but they're still chasing Infiniti and Honda in terms of product competition. And their showrooms are pretty low rent affairs.


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