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GM will turn the corner in North America - it has numerous aspirational cars (Cadillacs, Corvettes,) technological innovations (the Volt and Yukon 2-mode hybrid) and cars that people want to buy (the Malibu and the Astra)

This isn't about silly nationalistic notions of purchasing, but it was about junky cars, horrid badging and poor business models. For all intents and purposes, it looks like GM is addressing these concerns.

   

It only took them 30 years to do so...

   

True...

   

GM needed a scare, but it's coming back and once again it'll be the big player in the auto scene again. Toyota was that scare, but they really don't have anywhere close to the diversity of GM.

   

Agreed. And Toyota (great Globe article on it) is having some growing pains itself. GM seems to be getting better corporate management and with Lutz as the Car Czar, they have something Toyota doesn't have: A car guy.

   

Going by the quality of the product it's logically impossible to blame the Japanese government or industry for not wanting North American built garbage into their country. Any North American dealerships that opened in Japan or South Korea would probably flop even worse than Euro-Disneyland did.

But I'll admit my bias openly. I had a Ford car that went sideways on me to the tune of over $4000 in repairs in about a year-and-a-half. The dealership basically laughed at me because I bought it used and the letters to Ford Canada I sent got no response whatsoever. As such I could care less if all the Big Three went out of business completely. They've peddled a shit product for decades and they've treated their loyal customers like fools for decades. As far as I'm concerned they deserve what they've got coming to them. No one in Canada or the US owes these contemptuous assholes any loyalty at all.

   

I'm glad you admit your bias, but I think your bad experience with Ford is really putting a hard weight against it. We used to have those Pontiac Trans Am vans back in the late 90s, which lasted us a hell of a long time. Five years of abuse by a growing family. Last we heard the thing still runs.

Some cars have different experiences than others. My cousins had a rollover in a Kia. You had shit in a Ford. We can all say our shitty things, but accidents just happen

   

I gotta respectfully disagree. Bad quality accompanied by bad corporate attitude isn't an accident, it's a deliberate policy designed by the bobble-heads in upper management. I look at it this way: anecdotally everyone knows someone who got screwed by the Big 3 Three. That or they got screwed themselves. Statistically, going by Consumers Reports and numerous other industry ratings, North America consistently scores far below the foreign competetion in terms of product quality and customer satifaction. What would the cost of repairing those defective vehicles correctly have been, or what would the cost of replacing those lemons altogether, have cost the Big Three in the long run as opposed to the billions of dollars of revenue and profit they now lose solely due to them developing such a bad reputation? Would so many people have gone Japanese, German, or Swedish if the overall experience of dealing North American hadn't become so overwhelmingly negative for so many people? What was the overall cost to permanently losing former customers, who as a consumer bloc almost never return to buying North American, to foreign manufacturing?

These sorts of costs probably can't be accurately calculated. Nor would they want them to be calculateed and made public because revealing them to the public would be a direct and damning indictment of the most repugnant corporate management doctrine the industrial world has probably ever seen or experienced. Overall, though, the worst of it could have been avoided simply by them not being so contemptuous and scornful towards what was once a deeply loyal customer base.

   

Health benefits for workers adds $1500 to the price of a GM vehicle.

   

And those Japanese products like the Datsun B-210 and original Honda Civic were rust buckets when they first entered the North American market... So what is your point....?

I sold a 1992 Chevrolet Lumina I had 2 years ago. It had over 230,000kms on it... A wrench never touched it other then oil & spark plug changes, filters, an alternator and a battery... At age 54 I can honestly say it's the toughst car I've ever owned...

   

Ron Paul is still running.

Anyways, the Union is not helping the auto industry. People in the Union have to understand that your buddy sitting there doing nothing and collecting checks is ultimatly hurting your job. You will not get pay raises and run a very good chance of everyone losing their jobs.

This quarter would of been worse for GM if it weren't for a subsidy of 1.7 billion dollars. Disgusting.

   

Japan does not practice fair trading. They demand they have easy access to our markets but protect their own...

I read an article a few years ago how Japan loves American baseball but will not allow American manufactured equipment into their country...

Fair trade should benefit both nations economies and not just one...

   

Your mentioning Japanese cars from a thousand years ago really doesn't prove anything remotely resembling an argument that "Japanese vehicles are crap". If you want to go back in time to prove how crappy North American can be then I can counter you by reminding everyone of how Ford and GM in the late 1980's decided to skip an important primer step during painting that resulted in huge swaths of paint peeling off their vehicles years before any serious surface degradation was supposed to occur. Or Ford Pinto collision explosions from rear impacts impacting the fuel tank. Or GM truck explosions from side impacts impacting the fuel tank. Or Dodge/Chrysler having to be bailed out back in 1979 by the US government. Or Ford Explorer/Firestone tire roll-overs. OR the billions of dollars worth of lawsuits against the Big Three by consumer groups and individuals. In addition, just to boost the Japanese cause, I'll also mention that, anecdotally, everyone seems to know someone who kept one of those old 1973 Toyota Corollas running well past the one million MILE (not kilometer) mark; I personally know of at least three people who did this.

But this is a circular and therefore pointless argument. Once again I re-iterate that the Big Three are the masters of their own impending demise and unless they radically smarten up in the next couple of years they deserve what's coming to them.

   

You're right the rest of them like the Camry are made in the US ...go check out Toyotas web site(manufacturing plants) you'll be in for a real awakening.


Oh' we give them free land now? gov't doesn't help the big 3 ?

GM can't hold their own in their home continent all these fancy new cars coming out...I still haven't seen anybody driving a Malibu....big seller Toyota is a decade ahead in the development of new gasoline alternatives.


I would by domestic over a Honda but not a Toyota.

   

You better tell that to Ford...their partners at Mazda would have beat the canadian made civic with their Japanese made Mazda 3, but they couldn't spit them out of that Japanese plant fast enough

Ford owns at least 15% of Mazda never mind their partnering in production facilities.


Dirty back stabbing bastards

   

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