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Automotive News & Views GM News, New Models and Market Share
8476 messages, Last post on Nov 27, 2009 at 3:37 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: plekto (Jan 11, 2009 8:55 pm) Great comments, but gotta disagree here. IMHO one of the reasons Toyota and Honda are so successful is that they have not neglected their entry-level cars - they are generally better than the competition's. Honda, particularly, has done a great job with the Fit and the Civic. The first car for a teenager builds brand loyalty and that translates often to many more new car sales in the future. If the entry-level car is junk then the driver is going to look for something else next time. There is also a lucrative small premium car segment that GM has completely ignored. There are a lot of sales of A4s, BMW3s, Lexus IS's, high end Jettas, TSX's, even Mini Coopers -- and GM has nothing in this segment. Most of those vehicles are priced evenly with some of GMs midsized or large cars. GM would certainly be able to generate a profit from a small car that sells for $35K. I'd rather have a GM with 20 unique and hot cars that we all want and lust after, and nothing else. Completely agree. GM has focused on quantity (lots of divisions, lots of models, lots of rebadges, lots of rental fodder). They are beginning to focus as much energy on the vehicles themselves rather than how many models they can make. Fewer excellent vehicles will make them more successful. Look at Honda - not that many models, yet very successful.
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Replying to: tlong (Jan 11, 2009 7:48 pm)
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Replying to: tlong (Jan 11, 2009 11:42 pm) |
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Replying to: 62vetteefp (Jan 12, 2009 4:04 am) >but it can go a bit far But some of the bias is from feelings about cars from the 70s and 80s, perhaps earned. But it's almost a religion for a few people. They don't look at the current actual product; instead they constantly criticize almost like politics. What's interesting is the difference in forums and how they'll allow GM-bashing continually but in contrast will step in to squelch long-lasting criticism of Honda and Toyota, e.g., sludge discussions. The feeling is that GM deserves continuing criticism for the past. A big factor in the willingness to forgive faults of the foreign models from the past and present is in how the companies handled the 80s and 90s sales of their cars. I was listening to 3 dealer owners/managers being a part of a discussion during the bail out discussion on a Louisville radio station. They pointed out the car sale was the difference; for the foreign brands (then) it was arch important to keep the owner bringing the car back to the dealer for the service and proper maintenance (and fixes of things to avoid having to issue recalls). Counterpoint to this was the US brands who sold the car and the car was sometimes serviced properly and often wasn't. Then when things failed because of not having been repaired or maintained, the car company is blamed. The three described the foreign car sale as the PROCESS of ownership rather than just the sale, hence the better feeling about the cars on the part of the owners. In other words the US manufacturers goofed in competing with the new foreign brands of that era by not making it a requirement to bring vehicles back for regular service to handle the things that needed changing along with the oil change.
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Replying to: imidazol97 (Jan 12, 2009 5:27 am) I prefer to take my vehicle to the dealers for service. I believe BMW, MB & VW are now offering free service through the warranty period. GM should consider that. My last GMC was serviced free by the dealer with coupons sent out. I would rather they just offered it when the car is purchased. Toyota way overcharges for their service. They also very nicely tell you they will not fix things that need to be addressed. I don't believe I will use them for future non warranty service. Last time they charged me $60 for generic 30 weight oil. Wanted an additional $70 for no name synthetic. Previous GM PU trucks were generally serviced for a very nominal fee and sometimes waved, even though I bought the truck out of state. My last 20 years experience with the domestic service was much better than the last two vehicles from Toyota.
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Replying to: carnaught (Jan 11, 2009 11:30 am) |
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Replying to: 62vetteefp (Jan 11, 2009 12:23 pm) Loud? Heck, there are a lot of adjectives to describe a Buick, but "loud" isn't one. MPG sucks? Sheesh, I'm getting 29 MPG out of a 21 year-old car and my girlfriend's car is doing better. The badge sucks? Sheesh! What the heck do the others look like? Toyota's looks like it was drawn with a Spirograph and Nissan's looks like a hamburger! |
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Replying to: bpizzuti (Jan 11, 2009 1:38 pm) |
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Replying to: 62vetteefp (Jan 11, 2009 12:23 pm) To erase the shoddy image and so called perception, GM needs to show improvement up to a certain degree, and that line is higher than others which didn't mess itself in the past. In this regard GM hasn't done enough. GM at least needs either: 1) class leading products 2) top notch customer service to persuade people to forget GM's past mistakes. Is it done yet? Nope, none of them. Some GM products are getting better, but none leads the class yet (except maybe Tahoe). CTS and Corvette are world class, but do they lead? Nope. Customer service improved, yes (on par with toyota, I can believe that). But why compare it with Toyota (which is falling apart)? Why not compare it with the top of class Honda?
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Let me give you a little comparison. Hyundai, 10 years ago sold cheap cars with below par quality. Started off low as the bottom feeder. They constantly put up huuuge effort to raise their quality. Result: now they have decent quality cars, improved customer service, and increasing popularity. This is the success they've earned. All this from a company which started roughly only 3 decades ago, now the 5th largest car company in the world. Then we have the 100 year old GM. 10 years ago selling not so cheap cars with similar below par quality. Barely put any effort at all over the years until just recently. Alas, most the effort they did revolved around perceived "patriotism", cost cutting, lies and propagandas. What we get now, pretty much the same old GM we saw 10 years ago. 90% crappy cars, 9% decent, 1% world class. Customer service, improved meagerly, popularity? well the annual drop in market share shows everything. Result? Same old GM that can't survive without begging taxpayers for money. A century worth of experience got beaten up by Hyundai's measly 20 years experience. See the difference? You call that deserving anything? GM's service didn't improve much to the level it became on par with Toyota, it's because Toyota's falling service quality that allowed GM to catch up. Compare it with Honda for better comparison, which still maintain it's stellar customer service. Why do people always pick the easier preys? You'll never lead that way. If there's any car company in US that deserve more than it gets right now, it's Hyundai, not GM. |
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