Anyone else holding out for new 2013 Chevy/GMC truck?

[Renze]

Amen Renze, and I like that acronym too. It pisses me off that a piss-ant country of 11-million people like Greece can screw over the world financial system because of their government's fiscal stupidity.

Matt, This snowball started rolling in the USA because of irresponsible lending, and living on a credit. Then later, the PIGS countries showed that they didnt have the financial discipline to spend no more than they have, either. Here in Holland, luckily just one tiny bank rolled. Its the same problem on both sides of the Atlantic. 3rd world countries like China and Brazil have a wonderful credit status... the Western world is borrowing from THEM because we didnt carry our blessings responsibly. now THATS whats actually bothering me most. If nobody in the Western world changes their attitude, a country like China, with no human rights, freedom of speech, not any of the freedom we fought for, can catch up with us.... I'm not afraid of them trying to conquer us, but letting that happen is just a d*mn shame on all of us !

Which is better for the US economy - $5K profit sitting in Detroit or $45K Jobs / wages / materials / taxes etc sitting in Mexico?

Fact is that the world is a marketplace: I have said this before, but without cheap manufacturing from 3rd world countries, neither of us could live by the wealthy standard we live today: People that yell "buy USA" usually dont realise that they probably cant afford the cost of 100% USA labour. Unless they accept less "car" for their money.

 

[BethesdaEC]

My understanding is the supposed unintended acceleration problem really was not a problem with the cars, but with the drivers.

Let's remember that the big incident which brought focus onto Toyota was a policeman who supposedly could not keep his vehicle from accelerating out of control on the highway, and crashed, killing his family.

How is a policeman not an experienced, calm driver who knows that you can simply shift he car out of gear while maintaining power for the steering and brakes? Answer: the policeman was either a suicidal maniac, or looking for a TV interview and a settlement check. Whichever the case, he and his family paid for it with their lives, and Toyota paid for it with millions of dollars sunk into analyses and investigations which revealed that there was no problem with the cars. If you think there was a big cover-up and there really was something wrong with the cars, then you can introduce the third possibility, that the policeman was just an idiot and didn't know how to operate his car. However, the evidence indicates the drivers were at fault for all of these incidents.

In that particular instance, the police officer was in a loaner provided by the dealer and the dealer had stacked the floor mats. Toyota has accelerator pedals that are closer to the floor and more prone to interference than others. The pedal jammed, it wasn't his car and it had push button start, so he didn't know how to shut off the engine. This Toyota had the funky shiftgate which makes finding neutral hard and he probably was not initially aggressive enough with the brakes. Here is a nice little tidbit for you, your power brakes are driven off the vacuum of the engine and the vacuum is strongest at idle and nearly non existent at wide open throttle. There is a vacuum reservoir that will give you a couple of cycle of the brake and then you lose them. If you are going to use your brakes, you get one or maybe two chances, you have to aggressive and decisive otherwise you die. Also once they get hot they also stop working too.

Here are some good things to Google, Toyota engine sludge and ball joint failures. Toyota recalled the ball joints in Japan two years before the USA, because "Japanese drivers drive differently than American drivers" and it was not an issue for US market. Several people died in that one too.

The fines Toyota paid were not for the recall, they were fines for failure to report the defect to NHTSA in the required time. Toyota had this coming for quite a while.

 

[rasimmo]

I hope you do realize how many MILLIONS is brought into the economy. There are more people involved in the design, engineering, manufacturing process than actually "assemble" the cars - and all of these people make more money to put back into the economy. Now the entire building of parts here and shipping there is far more people involved - but if all your talking is the assembly in America it is more beneficial for it to be designed here an built elsewhere.

If you are saying that GM has more people in the corporate office doing the design and "business" decisions than they have in the plants making cars, it is no wonder they were failing. Sounds to me like some of the fat at the top needs to be trimmed.

I do not believe that is true though. I think it would take way more people to actually build it than it takes to design it, count beans, and push pencils. I do know that "foriegn" manufacturers opening plants in the US has created jobs and boosted the economy. I say buy what you like. None of them are 100% made in any one country anyway.

 

[Martian]

If you are saying that GM has more people in the corporate office doing the design and "business" decisions than they have in the plants making cars, it is no wonder they were failing. Sounds to me like some of the fat at the top needs to be trimmed.

I do not believe that is true though. I think it would take way more people to actually build it than it takes to design it, count beans, and push pencils. I do know that "foriegn" manufacturers opening plants in the US has created jobs and boosted the economy. I say buy what you like. None of them are 100% made in any one country anyway.

I'm saying for any given car more people designing/engineering/testing/building and designing the machines to build the cars in the main office than ASSEMBLE it. So for me I would say that it being designed here is just as important. We agree that not every part is made in America and you say you care where its assembled so the parts being made in foreign countries don't matter - but the facts are that a car/tractor being designed/engineered/tested etc here brings in as much if not more money than it being assembled.

 

[rasimmo]

I'm saying for any given car more people designing/engineering/testing/building and designing the machines to build the cars in the main office than ASSEMBLE it. So for me I would say that it being designed here is just as important. We agree that not every part is made in America and you say you care where its assembled so the parts being made in foreign countries don't matter - but the facts are that a car/tractor being designed/engineered/tested etc here brings in as much if not more money than it being assembled.

There are probably no "facts" to say which puts more money in the US economy. I see your point. You may be correct, or not, I have no idea.
I guess that is the reason that with major purchases neither of these sway my decision. I buy the one that fits my needs and budget the best. If there was a car or tractor that fit my needs that was 100% made in USA it would be worth more of my money. The fact is there is not, so it does not matter.

 

[JasG]

My understanding is the supposed unintended acceleration problem really was not a problem with the cars, but with the drivers.

Let's remember that the big incident which brought focus onto Toyota was a policeman who supposedly could not keep his vehicle from accelerating out of control on the highway, and crashed, killing his family.

How is a policeman not an experienced, calm driver who knows that you can simply shift he car out of gear while maintaining power for the steering and brakes? Answer: the policeman was either a suicidal maniac, or looking for a TV interview and a settlement check. Whichever the case, he and his family paid for it with their lives, and Toyota paid for it with millions of dollars sunk into analyses and investigations which revealed that there was no problem with the cars. If you think there was a big cover-up and there really was something wrong with the cars, then you can introduce the third possibility, that the policeman was just an idiot and didn't know how to operate his car. However, the evidence indicates the drivers were at fault for all of these incidents.

My point was that things fail and it wasn't/isn't just a Toyota problem. Yes it could be the driver in some cases, floor mats also were blamed. I would also bet that in some cases it would be electronics. I work on electrical controls daily and have seen things happen that at times can not be repeated. Many of these cars use "flyby wire" where there is no mechanical linkage between the throttle and the fuel injector. It is all electronic signal or in many cases a voltage difference.

We have machinery where I work that at times doesn't do what it is suppose to do. Reboot the system and all seems to work fine. These cars use very similar controls.

Recently we had a machine that was 7 years old pick up an alarm for optional equipment it didn't have. No idea why or how this happened. The only solution in this case was to log in to the controller and manually reset the alarm because we didn't have the reset button for that option because we didn't have that option. There were no wires connected to that section of the PLC. So some how the PLC created it's own alarm. Now in 7 years it hasn't happened 1 time, or in the 6 months since.

Now as far as how people act under pressure, no one really knows till they are faced with a life or death situation. I doubt run away cars is part of any training police or otherwise.

 

[JasG]

I'm saying for any given car more people designing/engineering/testing/building and designing the machines to build the cars in the main office than ASSEMBLE it. So for me I would say that it being designed here is just as important. We agree that not every part is made in America and you say you care where its assembled so the parts being made in foreign countries don't matter - but the facts are that a car/tractor being designed/engineered/tested etc here brings in as much if not more money than it being assembled.

Many of the companies that build here also design here. Toyota and Honda both have design centers here, many others also.

Also many of the cars built here create impact due to many buy local parts to keep the supply chain short. This in turn has a positive impact by giving more local people jobs.

Calty Design Research, Inc.

Honda Worldwide | January 8, 2006 "Acura Announces New U.S. Design Studio to Kick Off 20th Anniversary"

I'm actually a manufacturing engineer in an unrealed field. I do understand how to look at what puts the most money back into the US economy.

 

[CurlyDave]

...It sounds to me like your real problem was with the quality of the dealer's service. Yes, your vehicle had issues but the issues should have been corrected on the service first visit.

To some extent you are correct.

But, my experience with 4 Ford dealers was that they all gave poor service and did everything in their power to deny warranty coverage, even when the problems were clearly covered by warranty.

With 3 Toyota dealers I have had exactly the opposite experience, where they want you to have an individual experience which reflects high quality of the vehicle. When my wife takes her Highlander in for service, it costs less than at a quick oil change place, and if they find any other problems they put pressure on Toyota to cover it under warranty. Even non-covered service items are reasonable. How does the $10 she paid for two new, OEM windshield wipers, installed, sound to you?

A large part of the dealer attitude is set by the terms and conditions of their franchise agreement. From my experiences, Ford does not impose customer-friendly restrictions on their dealers, but Toyota evidently does.

The specific problems I had lie with the dealerships, but the root cause is back at Ford headquarters.

 

[CinderSchnauzer]

You are making the assumption that if the profits goes over seas then it creates American jobs. Well, if the profits stay here, that also creates American jobs and we are keeping America's wealth here, so your point is moot.

You are 100% wrong about what you think I am assuming.

Let me try one more time:

The Production / Manufacturing process creates JOBS.

Which would you rather have:

Profits stay in USA - JOBS go off shore?

JOBS stay in USA - Profits go Offshore?

You seem to think that PROFIT is the key to the economy. If you stop and think about it for a while a company could operate very successfully for years and not show $0.01 of PROFIT on their annual financial statements.

Since GM seems to be everyone's favorite whipping boy, surely you are aware that they operated and provided employment for thousands while at the same time incurring $$$ Billions in losses.

 

[Martian]

Okay people, if this commercial won't let us all agree to go buy an American made/designed/engineered/built car I don't know what will. I've said how my mother works for GM but after seeing this commercial I was inches away from buying a Chrysler just for this very commercial.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHozLw6f5rI]OFFICIAL 2011 EMINEM CHRYSLER SUPER BOWL COMMERCIAL - YouTube[/ame]