Is General Motors Worth Saving?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Don't buy a VW. Damned expensive maintenance.

I freaking hear you, you should've told me 4 years ago!

Yeah - it wasn't the best choice.

Worse than average depreciation too. Not only does it cost more to fix - but the thing is more or less worthless after 3 years.

Now, shooting for a new Civic EX, damn starter broke down on my jetta and cost me 240 bucks to fix it. I wanted a GTI, forget that sh!t

Damn u VW! and I'm not talking about Virtual Wife

I can beat that - $350 for a headlight. Because the Beetle is a novelty car you have to pretty much buy all the parts from the manufacturer.

[Heracles 417]

Strange how GM and Exxon were in bed together in the 60's and early 70's to buy up public transportation, shutting it down, and forcing people to buy cars and gas to get to work or whatever. Oh yes, these was against anti-trust regulations, they got fined a whole 5,000 bucks for each occurrence. So what's going on today between these two lovebirds, sounds like Exxon is screwing their fellow bed partner, but not in the way GM likes it, well along with everyone else. But Exxon certainly has the bucks to bail out GM and would be in their interest to do so.

I do not like GM management, but with closer ties years ago, was told that GM owned 48% of Toyota stocks, more obvious is that GM does not just make cars here, but is a worldwide organization. Eight years ago, Ford had enough petty cash to buy out Honda, but Honda was not for sale.

One major reason that the price of vehicles is so high is because of government agencies dictating every move, not only in emissions, but in performance, and believe me, hours were wasted in trying to figure out what in the hell they were talking about, none of those idiots could have survived in a profit making organization. Plus limits in how vehicles were manufacturing, had to switch to all water based paints without proper development first, they are pretty good today, and had to dump all electroplating for such important things like switch and connector contacts. You don't know the other side of the story. Can't really blame them from moving a lot of their manufacturing to China, our government forced them to. Health insurance also went up drastically, are we getting that much better care? Our government treats our manufacturing segment as the enemy, and they sure in the hell aren't there to help us, the dirty rotten bastards. And instead of working together, our jobs are now in China, also thanks to our government. Somebody in the government is getting rich.

Toyota and Honda was the laughing stock of the automotive industry when they first started, with the slow down in the automotive industry after the energy crisis, they came here to hire American engineers to show them how to built a decent car, so if you love Toyota's and Honda's you can thank me for one of them. Not that I liked working for them, but better than starving at the time. A really major crime and again our government, is that we have an open door policy to Japan for them to apply as many patents as they want to, the ratio of patents granted to the Japanese as oppose to those granted to US car manufacturers is on the order of 350 to 1. But our doors for us to apply for patents in Japan are completely closed. So they can tie up our technology but we cannot tie up theirs. Who in the phuck in our government is selling us out to the Japanese, and now China?

Another thing I hate about American manufacturing, everything has to be instant profit, can't even look ahead a few months, but our government is the same way, zero long term thinking.

Very well said. I cannot believe they allowed them to buy the public transport and rip it out. I remember reading about that and thinking what a bunch of bloody idiots the government is.

[Craneman 2]

Shut up

who gives you this responsibility.

Shut up yourself, jerk.

What does a broken starter on a VW have to do with GM and Ford bankruptcy, or am I completely missing something?

shut up noob,

you dont know us!

and yes, to answer your question, you are missing like 2-3 pages of posts

[mawilson 2,133]

Toyota isn't going down. Neither is Honda.

Maybe profits are going down across the board, but those two are still the best sellers. So indeed, they do "get it", while Ford is playing catch-up and GM is clearly left behind.

It wasn't until 2007 that Toyota surpassed GM in global volume.

GM had been the world's largest automaker since 1931, so they were doing something right.

This year, Toyota is #1 and GM is #2, both in US and global sales.

Last year, GM was #1 in US sales and Toyota was #2. Ford was #3 and Honda #4.

So, no, Honda is not the "best seller".

[Heracles 417]

Yet.

SVRT does not understand the concept of no one is buying cars. In such a market the people who have to buy a car will most likely buy the cheapest to get around. Ruling both Honda and Toyota out. Funny that people forget how cheap and ####### the first Toyota's and Honda's were. Their lower price was their initial selling point.

Someone who needs a car yet is struggling, like the majority of Americans, is going to be price conscious. Cheap and Honda does not go together well.

[Heracles 417]

Toyota isn't going down. Neither is Honda.

Maybe profits are going down across the board, but those two are still the best sellers. So indeed, they do "get it", while Ford is playing catch-up and GM is clearly left behind.

It wasn't until 2007 that Toyota surpassed GM in global volume.

GM had been the world's largest automaker since 1931, so they were doing something right.

This year, Toyota is #1 and GM is #2, both in US and global sales.

Last year, GM was #1 in US sales and Toyota was #2. Ford was #3 and Honda #4.

So, no, Honda is not the "best seller".

The other thing is that the G8 here is a muscle car here. Whereas the GM based G8 is also sold in a basic sedan version in Australia; Where it outsells the Camry.

GM just made a bad bet with sedans as did Ford and Chysler when it scrapped the intrepid. Yet overseas where family sedans are the vehicle of choice, like Australia, the GM versions outsell and outpeform both the Camry and Accord.

Edited November 13, 2008 by Aficionado

[EstebanTrabajos 7]

Shut up

who gives you this responsibility.

Shut up yourself, jerk.

Tavo senses this noob hasn't figured out OT yet,

Shut up noob

[SMOKE 1,426]

YES WE WILL!!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=home

[Craneman 2]

Shut up noob, real refreshing there "Cowbuoy"

Shut up

who gives you this responsibility.

Shut up yourself, jerk.

Tavo senses this noob hasn't figured out OT yet,

Shut up noob

[IAMX 3,055]

Toyota isn't going down. Neither is Honda.

Maybe profits are going down across the board, but those two are still the best sellers. So indeed, they do "get it", while Ford is playing catch-up and GM is clearly left behind.

It wasn't until 2007 that Toyota surpassed GM in global volume.

GM had been the world's largest automaker since 1931, so they were doing something right.

This year, Toyota is #1 and GM is #2, both in US and global sales.

Last year, GM was #1 in US sales and Toyota was #2. Ford was #3 and Honda #4.

So, no, Honda is not the "best seller".

That's funny, because the top 5 selling cars are all from Honda and Toyota.

Yet.

SVRT does not understand the concept of no one is buying cars. In such a market the people who have to buy a car will most likely buy the cheapest to get around. Ruling both Honda and Toyota out. Funny that people forget how cheap and ####### the first Toyota's and Honda's were. Their lower price was their initial selling point.

Someone who needs a car yet is struggling, like the majority of Americans, is going to be price conscious. Cheap and Honda does not go together well.

Honda Civics aren't that expensive. Hell, the biggest sales for Toyota and Honda are their mid-tier economy lines, not their hybrids. So evidently it doesn't rule out Honda and Toyota. Then, of course, the fact that the hybrid market is not plunging like the rest of the market, add onto that hybrids are taking up more marketshare in the face of these plunges. Only you would rule out the obvious, agenda boy.

[mawilson 2,133]

Toyota isn't going down. Neither is Honda.

Maybe profits are going down across the board, but those two are still the best sellers. So indeed, they do "get it", while Ford is playing catch-up and GM is clearly left behind.

It wasn't until 2007 that Toyota surpassed GM in global volume.

GM had been the world's largest automaker since 1931, so they were doing something right.

This year, Toyota is #1 and GM is #2, both in US and global sales.

Last year, GM was #1 in US sales and Toyota was #2. Ford was #3 and Honda #4.

So, no, Honda is not the "best seller".

That's funny, because the top 5 selling cars are all from Honda and Toyota.

I guess GM just sells a hell of a lot more cars that are not "top 5 selling".

[IAMX 3,055]

Toyota isn't going down. Neither is Honda.

Maybe profits are going down across the board, but those two are still the best sellers. So indeed, they do "get it", while Ford is playing catch-up and GM is clearly left behind.

It wasn't until 2007 that Toyota surpassed GM in global volume.

GM had been the world's largest automaker since 1931, so they were doing something right.

This year, Toyota is #1 and GM is #2, both in US and global sales.

Last year, GM was #1 in US sales and Toyota was #2. Ford was #3 and Honda #4.

So, no, Honda is not the "best seller".

That's funny, because the top 5 selling cars are all from Honda and Toyota.

I guess GM just sells a hell of a lot more cars that are not "top 5 selling".

They sure must be selling lots to drop as far as they are and still be #1, eh? None of the Japanese cars are dropping off this badly:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081031/bs_nm/us_usa_autosales_2

General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler LLC are expected to lead the U.S. sales declines, but all six of the top sellers -- including Toyota Motor Corp, Honda Motor Co Ltd and Nissan Motor Co Ltd -- were expected to report lower sales.

On an unadjusted basis, Edmunds.com expects GM sales to drop 40.7 percent, Chrysler to drop 38.1 percent and Ford to drop 34.7 percent. It expects a 29.2 percent drop at Nissan, a 17.2 percent slide at Honda and a 15.5 percent fall at Toyota.

While all auto manufacturers are suffering, it's clear why GM is suffering the most. They suck.

[mendeleev 68]

Diesel costs almost double the price compared with regular gasoline.

Perhaps someone can explain that - I thought in distillation you got more of the heavy fractions (i.e. it should be cheaper). Unless the difference is all tax.

No its not all tax or even mostly tax that puts diesel at a disadvantage right now. It is possible to hydrotreat diesel into gasoline fuels and apparently decisions were taken to do so. My take is that the refiners decided to pull out the stops to increase gasoline supply at the expense of diesel.

Diesel refining has gotten more demanding with current low-sulfur requirements. There's a whole lot more to refining than mere distillation.

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Let them go down!

Crappy and inefficient cars, invest all on japanese companies and get all the revenue from their worldwide sales

That's the true spirit.

In anycase, a bailout only postpones the inevitable end of "Big 3" going under; no question of "saving" GM (, Chrysler or Ford) so they should not be bailed-out!

But AIG should be?

If we can spend $700,000,000,000 on banks and $150,000,000,000 on AIG alone, we should certainly loan money to a company which actually produces something. There should be conditions to this. The big three need a complete overhaul. From the top down.

Thanks you. An intelligent reply.

[Ban Hammer 13,352]

Shut up

who gives you this responsibility.

Shut up yourself, jerk.

Tavo senses this noob hasn't figured out OT yet,

Shut up noob

actually, his join date is earlier than yours.